presented to £be Xibrar? of tbe ^University of Toronto b£ Bertram 1R. 2>a\>is from tbe boofca of tbe late Xionel Bavls, 1R.C« LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK LORD AVEBURY MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO /' frtnrt a, tttivurLng, bvyCje^rrnc yZichrrboruL Ju/L,l8£pr Om^~u CTaJcJJ^ J&L.K . LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK LORD AVEBURY P.C. ; For. Sec. R. A. ; F.R.S. ; German Order of Merit ; Corr. Memb. French Acad. ; Comm. Legion of Honour ; Trustee British Museum ; D.C.L. (Oxon.), LL.D. (Cantab., Dubl., Edin., and St. Andrews), M.D. (Wurzb.), V.P.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S., F.S.A. ; Assoc. Acad. Roy. des Sci. Brux. ; Hon. Mem. R. Irish Acad., Amer. Ethnol. Soc, Anthrop. Soc. Wash. (U.S.), Brux., Firenze, Anthrop. Verein Graz, Soc. Entom. de France, Soc. Geol. de la Suisse, and Soc. H el vet. des Sci. Nat. ; Mem. Amer. Phil. Soc. Philad., and Soc. d'Ethn. de Paris ; Corresp. Mem. Soc. des Sci. Nat. de Cherb., Berl. Gesell. fur Anthrop., Soc. Romana di Antrop., Soc. d'Emul. d'Abbeville, Soc. Cient. Argentina, Soc. de Geog. de Lisb., Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad., Numis. and Ant. Soc. Philad., Amer. Entom. Soc. ; For. Assoc. Mem. Soc. d' Anthrop. de Paris ; For. Mem. Amer. Antiq. Soc. ; For. Mem. Soc. Espanola de Hist. Nat. ; For. Mem. Roy. Soc. of Sci. Upsala ; Hon. Mem. New Zealand Inst. ; For. Mem. Soc. de Biol. Paris. BY HORACE G. HUTCHINSON IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1914 COPYRIGHT (QVA V.\ CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xi CHAPTER I THE LUBBOCK FAMILY CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD Relations with parents — Interest in insects — His mother's notes of his sayings and character CHAPTER III PRIVATE SCHOOL First letters from school — Dislike of algebra — Diligence in other studies — Physical delicacy . . .10 CHAPTER IV ETON System of education at Eton — His tutor's singular estimate of him — Not suited by the system . . .15 CHAPTER V INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS Reasons for his early entry into business — His loneliness — Darwin's influence — Mr. P. Norman's account of the cricket at High Elms ..... 22 vi LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CHAPTER VI BUSINESS AND SCIENCE PACK Business and society — The arrangement of his day — His first published paper — Attends British Association Meeting — Meets Miss Hordern .... 28 CHAPTER VII SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE Visit to Paris — Discovery of Ovibos moschatus — Letters from Darwin, Prestwich, Lyell, etc. — Influence of Darwin on his character — Marriage 3G CHAPTER VIII " THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES " Initiates " Country Clearing " of cheques — The Origin of Species — Controversies raised by it — Geological trip to France ....... 46 CHAPTER IX SCIENCE, AND THOUGHTS OF PARLIAMENT Leaves High Elms — Bees in a bag — Ferrets in a railway carriage — Letters on scientific subjects — Essays and Reviews — Visit to Scandinavia — Invited to stand for the City — Races at High Elms .... 52 CHAPTER X FIRST STANDING FOR PARLIAMENT Invited to stand for West Kent — Death of his father — He returns to High Elms — Paternal attitude towards younger brothers — Success as political speaker — Prehistoric Times — With Lady Lubbock in railway accident ....... G6 CONTENTS vii CHAPTER XI SCIENCE AND ARCHAEOLOGY PAGE Archaeology — First proposals for Atlantic cable — Tour in Austria — Stonehenge and Avebury — Publication of clearing-house returns — Kingsley on Prehistoric Times — Invited to stand for London University . . 81 CHAPTER XII MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT Homeric " bronze " — Trips to Italy and Switzerland — Defeated again for West Kent — President of Meta- physical Society — First speech in Parliament — Intro- duces his first Bill — Plays cricket for the House — His main objects for wishing for a seat in Parliament . 96 CHAPTER XIII " st. lubbock's day " Success in legislation — The Origin of Civilization — President of Anthropological Society — The Bank Holiday Act — Extraordinary scenes on the first Bank Holiday — National testimonial — "Ancient Monuments" Bill — Endowed Schools Act Amendment — " Metamor- phoses of Insects " — Scheme to relieve distress in Paris — Purchase of Avebury — Early Closing Bill drafted . . . . . .112 CHAPTER XIV SCIENCE AND POLITICS Buys " a meadow at Abury " — Vice-Chancellor of London University — Constantinople and the Troad — Tame wasp at British Association Meeting — Letters of Dr. Schliemann, Mr. Gladstone, and Darwin — Death of his mother — Early Closing and Ancient Monuments Bills — Re-elected for Maidstone — Lecture to British Association — Insects and flowers . . .135 viii LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CHAPTER XV VARIOUS CORRESPONDENCE PAGE M. E. Reclus — Sketch in the World — Stonehenge — Morley and Gladstone at High Elms — Death of Mr. Mul- holland — History of £1 notes — Letter from B. St. Hilaire — Babylonian bankers — The Companies Act Amendment — Death of Lady Lubbock . .153 CHAPTER XVI MEMBER FOR LONDON UNIVERSITY Ancient Monuments Bill passed — Turned out for Maidstone — Election for London University — Presides over Jubilee meeting of British Association — His brothers — Meets Miss Fox Pitt — Faculty for asking questions of Nature — At Algiers . . . . .167 CHAPTER XVII THE DEATH OF DARWIN Ill-health — Marriage of Mrs. Sydney Buxton — Interest of Royal Family in his Insect Studies — Death and burial of Darwin — His attitude towards science and religion — Murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish — With Ruskin at Avebury — Mr. Bishop, the thought-reader — Greater freedom from business ties . . . .182 CHAPTER XVIII SECOND MARRIAGE Scouring the White Horse— Stonehenge— Bank Holidays and drunkenness — Reduction of National Debt — Caricature in Punch — Miss Alice Fox Pitt — Propor- tional representation — Games of Fives — Marries Miss Fox Pitt — Terrific speech-making . . .192 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER XIX Proportional Representation — Letters from Sir G. Stokes and Mr. Hare — The Belgian system — Efforts for arbitration — In the Dolomites — At Cambridge — In Scotland — " Best Hundred Books " — Letters from Mr. John Bright, Lord Iddesleigh, etc. — Gladstone's Home Rule Bill — Letter from Ruskin — Mr. Frederic Harrison, his opponent for London University — A three to one victory — Recoinage of light gold — Lord Randolph Churchill's plan — Tour in Greece — Death of Professor Busk ....... 211 CHAPTER XX " THE PLEASURES OF LIFE " View of the publishers — Sir John's knowledge of his audience — Limitations of his versatility — Extra- ordinary popularity of the Pleasures of Life — Letters of appreciation ...... 235 CHAPTER XXI " NATIONALITIES " AND POLITICS Committee on Public Accounts — Forty " Immortals " — " Nationalities " in Great Britain — Letters on the sub- ject— Ruskin's friendship — Liberal Unionist Policy . 250 CHAPTER XXII INSTITUTION OF LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL " Early Closing " — The political situation — The Senses of Animals — London County Council — Breakfast parties — The Declaration of Paris — Letter from Lord Lytton — The Dock Strike — Privy Councillor . . . 266 x LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CHAPTER XXIII CHAIRMANSHIP OF LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL PAGE Golf at High Elms — Sir Edwin Arnold's description of him — Efforts to bring him back to the Gladstonians — The " Origin of Man " — Chairman of London County Council — Date of Ice Age .... 290 CHAPTER XXIV VARIOUS ACTIVITIES " Best Hundred Books " — New coinage — Theatres Bill — Palmerston's jeu de mot — Election to Reform Club — The Empress Friedrich — Heavy work of L.C.C. — His dexterity as Chairman .... 307 CHAPTER XXV GIVES UP CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. Battle of the " Loans " in L.C.C. — Letters from Lord Farrer and Lord Rosebery — Cause of the Ice Age — Gives up L.C.C. Chairmanship — Election to " The Club" — Meeting of Foreign Bondholders — Shop Hours Bill — Letter from Professor Tyndall — Evidence of change in the moon — Address at St. Thomas' Hospital ....... 317 Sir John Lubbock, from a Drawing by George Richmond, R.A., 1867 . . . Frontispiece Sketch Pedigree showing the Descent of Sir John Lubbock, First Baron Avebury . Face page 1 High Elms ..... Face page 192 INTRODUCTION I am grateful that it does not fall on me to assign to Lord Avebury his exact place in any list of latter-day saints or heroes, to apportion him the precise measure of his niche in Fame's temple. Had I to make the attempt it would certainly be too difficult for me, and I think it is a difficulty that any who will endeavour to estimate his qualities by the com- parative method will quickly appreciate. It is found at once that there is no common measure to apply to him and to other men. His mind was very singular, very individual in its quality, and his variety of achievement makes it well-nigh impossible to say that he should take rank in advance of this, or behind that other, distinguished man. Sir Algernon West, whose fag Lord Avebury was at Eton, informed me that he was attending a meeting at which Lord Avebury, in the later years of his life, should have been present, but was prevented by illness. Mr. Asquith, who took the chair in his stead, and who is gifted with a faculty for finding the happy phrase, referred to Lord Avebury, while making apology for his absence, as " one of the most remarkable men of our time," and it is an appreciation which the very peculiar qualities of his intellect xii LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK renders singularly appropriate. Vivid witness to the value of his work in the world was aptly- given by another who knew him well, and spoke of his life as " one of the most useful that was ever lived." Assuredly that is not praise too high. This, at all events, I may say, that though I claim the privilege of knowing him, with some intimacy, in his later years, it is only while studying the correspondence connected with the scientific work to which he devoted himself before he went into Parliament, that I quite realised the very high estimation in which he was held, as a scientist, by such men as Sir Charles Lyell, the great Darwin, Tyndall, Huxley, and so on. These, and the like giants received him, and estimated him, as one of their own select, yet great company. It is an appreciation which disposes, for ever, of that ill-considered criticism, suggested by his extraordinarily varied talent, that " bankers considered him a great scientist and men of science a great banker." The testi- mony of the following pages will be poorly presented indeed if it does not suffice to dis- abuse the reader of any impression of the kind which this sorry epigram may have suggested. It might be thought that any evidence from within the bank at 15 Lombard Street is suspect of partiality ; but at least that is not to be said of more public business in which he was con- cerned. Sir Charles Fremantle, at one time Master of the Mint, and later associated with Lord Avebury as Vice-Chairman of the Council of Foreign Bondholders, of which Lord Avebury himself was long, and for two distinct periods, INTRODUCTION xiii Chairman, has assured me that for keen business acumen and wisdom he never met his chairman's equal. Notably he was a great pacifier. From the chair of a stormy meeting his influence spread as oil on the waves, and his dexterous steering and fine vision for a possible haven that would be welcome to all, has averted many a shipwreck. As I have remarked elsewhere, Lord Avebury was not of those who reveal the inner self in- timately in their letters. On the other hand, his correspondence includes a large number of letters on very various subjects, from writers in all parts of the globe. At home he was, of necessity, in touch with the distinguished men of the day in almost all the pursuits which are of import to humanity, and in consequence the interest of the letters which he received is singularly wide and varied. It has been a great difficulty to decide what, where so much seemed worth reproducing, to discard, but I am tolerably confident, at least, of the interest attaching to that which I have been able to retain, and my thanks are due to the writers, and to the legal representatives of the deceased writers, of those letters, to the trustees of Mr. Gladstone, of Mr. Herbert Spencer, and many more, for their kind permission to reproduce them. In the case of some foreign correspondents it has proved im- possible, in spite of all reasonable enquiry, to discover their addresses or their living representa- tives, and for the insertion, without permission, of their letters, I have to make apology and to ask pardon. My debt to Lady Avebury and to xiv LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK other members of the family, and more particu- larly to the method and care in the arrangement of the papers of the late Lord Avebury himself, is beyond telling. It is right that I should mention, too, the kind help of some of his old friends, such as Sir Algernon West, Sir Charles Fremantle, Mr. Philip Norman, and Mr. Tedder, the Librarian of the Athenaeum Club. Above all I am indebted to Mr. Arthur Elliot for the care with which he has been good enough to go through the proof sheets and for many valuable suggestions. It is not for me to impose upon the reader my own view, either of the intellectual or the moral character of the subject of this biography. My aim must be to make his qualities apparent from a perusal of the pages which carry the record of his achievements, and of the value in which they were held by those associated in them. In all confidence the reader may be left to form his judgment. It occurred to me as a curious coincidence, that on the very day on which I was invited to write Lord Avebury's life, I was reading the definition of a " gentle- man " according to the " Note-books " of Samuel Butler. "If we were asked," the writer says, " what is the most essential characteristic that underlies this word, the word itself will guide us to gentleness, to absence of such things as brow-beating, overbearing manners and fuss, and generally to consideration for other people." I have known no other man by whom this char- acteristic was so fully expressed as by the late Lord Avebury. CHAPTER I THE LUBBOCK FAMILY The following are Lord Avebury's own notes, relative to the family origin : The name Lubbock, spelt De Lubyck, first appears on a Close Roll of 12 & 14 Edwd. II. ; but this spelling was an exception. The family appear from time immemorial to have formed a small clan in one district. " Although," says Mr. Birkbeck in his history of the family, " the name of Lubbock is to be found at an early period in many Norfolk parishes, they appear to have been chiefly settled in a group of parishes a few miles from Cromer, viz. Hanworth, Calthorpe, Wickmere, Alby, Thurgarton and Aldborough." x Mr. Birkbeck seems to think that the Lubbocks were of Saxon origin, but this is more than doubtful. The name is of great interest. By far the greater number of our family names are either Celtic or Teutonic. Lubbock is one of the few exceptions. The authorities of the British Museum looked into the matter and came to the conclusion that no Teutonic or Celtic 1 Robert Birkbeck, Notes on the History and Genealogy of the Family Lubbock. VOL. I 1 B 2 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CT. derivation of the name could be suggested, as it seems to be one of the few remnants of some aboriginal or at any rate pre-Celtic language. Evidently the Lubbocks have been settled in Norfolk from time immemorial. They are numerous in that county and especially in the parishes round North Walsham and Lamas, to which Lubbocks elsewhere can generally trace their origin. The derivation of the name is practically unknown. It points to emigration from Lubeck, but this is uncertain, nor does it carry us much further. The name has probably come down from some prehistoric language. Its earliest known occurrence in Britain is in the case of John Lubbock of Hanworth in 1378-1379. The Lubbocks often appear in the records of the Norwich Law Courts, but Mr. Birkbeck in his privately printed book on the family history mentions that he did not find a single Lubbock name in the Assize Rolls. The family of Lord Avebury trace their descent from Robert Lobuk of North Walsham, who died in 1493. The earliest family portrait is that of John Lubbock, born in 1668. Lubbock's business, according to London Bankers by F. G. Hilton Price, was started at 11 Mansion House Street, February 5, 1772, by Sir Wm. Lemon, Buller, Furley, Lubbock & Co. In 1835 it was Sir John William Lubbock, Forster & Co. In 1860 it amalgamated with Robarts, Curtis & Co. Lubbock's old house in Mansion House Street was part of Sir Martin THE LUBBOCK FAMILY 3 Bower's bequest to the Goldsmiths' Company, and was leased from them. Robarts, Curtis, Were, Hornyold & Berwick were established in 1792 at 35 Cornhill. Sir William Curtis was Lord Mayor in 1795. In 1797 they moved to 15 Lombard Street, the present site of the bank. It occupies the site of three old houses — Nos. 15, 16, and 17. The two last were Lloyd's Coffee-house, which originated with a coffee-house keeper named Edward Lloyd, who in September 1696 started Lloyd's News. The house was at the west corner of Abchurch Lane. The father of the first Lord Avebury, Sir John William, third baronet, came by inherit- ance into the command of the business and banking-house, but at heart was more devoted to the sciences of astronomy and mathematics. He published little, an illustrated book of the stars in the various quarters of the heavens, and of the planets at the different seasons, being his best-known work in connection with astron- omy. His Theory of Probabilities has perhaps been the foundation of more " systems," whether of a gambling or less speculative nature, than is often realised, and the Royal Society awarded him one of its medals for his work on the Tides. For some years he was Treasurer of the Royal Society, and in this office came into touch with many men of science both of this and other countries. The Duke of Sussex was the nominal head of the Royal Society at the time, and Sir John Lubbock's position of Treasurer made him the practical and acting head. 4 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK on.* The family appears to have been distributed, for some seven hundred and more years, in the parishes above named and others between Norwich and Cromer, and although the small East Anglian property of Lamas, in East Anglia, is still a family possession, the grandfather of the first Lord Avebury found the inconvenience, for business purposes, of a residence so far from the metropolis, and took up his abode in or near London. He lived for a while at High Elms, the family's present place in Kent, but, finding that again scarcely convenient enough for his business engagements, removed to Mitcham, where he rented a house on the river Wandle. From Mitcham he used to drive up to the City in a four-in-hand, and Lord Avebury used to relate that he always sat in the parlour in top- boots. His son, who had married a Miss Hotham, took a house in Eaton Place — No. 29 — where was born on April 30, 1834, John Lubbock, the future first Lord Aveburv. CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD (1834-1842) (Age (?) 8) There is a note in Lord Avebury's hand, stating : " The first two things I can remember are sitting at a window in front of some red cloth drapery, to see the Queen's Coronation from the Royal Exchange rooms in Pall Mall — and a large insect under a glass." In view of some later developments we may perhaps admire the loyalty which places the Royal Lady, in this brief catalogue, before his interest in the insect. He was the eldest of a large family of eleven, and how exceptionally fortunate they all were in their parents will be understood by those who realise the much greater distance and reserve that used to be maintained at that time between father and mother and children, in comparison with the friendliness which commonly exists between those thus related now. No doubt we should pronounce the father austere towards his children, if he were judged by the standards of the present day, but in a brief manuscript account of Sir John William Lubbock, by an 6 6 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. unidentified hand, it is written that " he was a most kind and devoted husband and father, and made his children, eleven in number, his constant companions, teaching them in the early morning, before starting for the City, and playing with them on his return. He never allowed his children's questions to go unanswered, and delighted in watching the development of their minds. He was much struck by a question of his eldest child, the present Sir John Lubbock, then about four years old, who sat on the rug watching some paper burning in the fire : c Where do burnt things go to ? ' " Doubtless all that his children did was of interest to him, but there is abundant evidence that his authority was very strictly enforced. I will ask the reader to note this query of Lord Avebury's because we shall find, at a later period, this faculty of asking himself (and others) questions as to the " why " of the common phenomena which surround us very finely developed. And we shall see, too, that it was a faculty which led him to highly interesting conclusions. In the same year, 1838, when he was just turned four, there is the following note about him in his mother's diary : " His great delight is in Insects. Butterflies, Caterpillars or Beetles are great treasures, and he is watching a large spider outside my window most anxiously." During his earliest years he, in company with his father and mother, used to spend many weeks at the house of his grandfather and grandmother at Mitcham Grove, and in the then pellucid CHILDHOOD 7 waters of the Wandle the naturalist that was to be found new wonders every day for his enter- tainment. In the autumn his parents generally took a house at Brighton, his father not devoting himself very regularly to business, but giving the best of his time and attention to his mathe- matical studies. Daguerre, in France, had recently completed that invention for the taking of daguerreotypes by which his name is remembered. The sight of those primitive photographic records affords more amusement than admiration to-day, but they were wonders in their time, and Lord Avebury used to recall how the French inventor sent the first of his machines that ever came to England to Sir John Lubbock. It arrived at Mitcham, and at the age of four or five Lord Avebury assisted at, or, as he suggests, impeded, the taking of the first picture ever recorded by the sun in England. That picture may be looked on as the parent, or at least the eldest collateral, of every photograph since taken in this country. The grandfather died in 1840, and the Mitcham Grove house was given up, Lord Avebury's parents taking up their residence at High Elms, which was entirely rebuilt. It must have been very shortly before this removal that Lady Lubbock, his mother, began to keep a systematic record of the sayings and doings of her children, and, perhaps with a little allowance to be made for a mother's natural partiality, this record may be accepted as a valuable indication of their characteristics and 8 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OT. capacities. Six of the children mentioned in the preceding " pedigree " were at that time living, and the age of John, the eldest, is entered as 7J. The following brief character-sketch is appended to his name : "A very sensible Boy, with an over - sensitive and timid disposition, and requiring great care in his education and management, and more like what I conceive I was at his age than any child I ever saw (I ought not, however, to call myself c very sensitive ')." The mother whose nature is thus, with charm- ing unconsciousness, revealed, did not realise that in this modest disclaimer, within the brackets, she is affording yet further testimony to the essential likeness between herself and this eldest child, for of his many remarkable characteristics the self - depreciating modesty which these words discover was one of the most striking. His intelligent mind soon began to prompt him to ask some of those theological questions which parents find so much difficulty in answer- ing. " We were talking," Lady Lubbock writes, " about resisting the Devil, and what that meant, and John said, ' Mama, do you think it's right in us to hate the Devil ? I don't. I thought we ought to hate no one ? ' I said, ' Very true, dear, but the Devil is the personifica- tion of Sin, and we must hate Sin.' ' True, Mama, but the Devil was once an Angel, so I think we ought to wish he may some day grow good again, instead of hating him.' The excessive beauty and originality of this remark struck me CHILDHOOD 9 more than anything I have ever heard said by a child." One who knew Lord Avebury very intimately was especially delighted by this observation. 'Why," was the comment, "it is what he has been doing all his life, trying to convert devils." In his charity and optimism regarding all human nature it seemed impossible for him to believe it ever so bad that he should despair of its conversion. It is interesting to observe the character of the theology of the day, in which he was strictly trained, the more interesting in view of the brave stand that he was to make in later days for liberality of view, in connection with the storms which beat about the heads of Bishop Colenso, Charles Darwin and others, whose thought was in advance of their time. We find his mother recording of him that " John said to Manie [the governess], * I have been thinking of a new plan, Manie, which I mean to go upon. I find I am not near so good a boy as my sisters are good girls, and I am going to try a different plan : of a morning before they are up I find they always read in their prayer book. Now I read Bingley's Natural History. But for the future I mean to read in my bed every morning the 149th Psalm to remind me God sees us at all times, and the 3rd of Revelations to remind me of the day of Judgment ; and then don't you think, Manie, I shall have more strength to be a good boy ? ' " CHAPTER III PRIVATE SCHOOL (1842-1845) (Age 8-11) When he was eight years old he was sent to Mr. Waring's private school at Abingdon Abbey. Apparently it was an excellent school, but Lady Lubbock notes that " Sir John is rather alarmed at the very aristocratic set of school-fellows little John will have. The boys that will be there when he goes are three Seotts, Duke of Buccleuch's sons ; three Legges, Lord Dartmouth's sons ; Lord Chesterfield's son ; Newdigate, poor Lady Barbara Newdigate's son ; Bathurst, my friend Mrs. Bathurst's only son ; Lord Dunglass ; Peel, a nephew of Sir Robert's ; Lascelles, etc., etc." It is evident, however, in spite of the boy's sensitive nature, that he very quickly fell into his place, and found content in this House of youthful Lords. One of his first letters from school — those letters to which a mother looks forward so anxiously to know how the child is faring in that strange new world — is full of happy augury and worthy of quotation for the hint that it gives of a fine quality of mind which 10 ch. in PRIVATE SCHOOL 11 was to be of no little use to him through life, " My dear Papa, I hope you are all quite well. We have a half holiday every Thursday. We have a good many jolly cricket matches. ... I like school very much and Mr. Waring says I shall get on very well. Good-bye, my dear papa. Believe me ever your affectionate John Lubbock. " I am a favourit with most of the boys because I do not care aboute being laughed." Is not that an invaluable quality which he discloses in this postscript ? And is it not rather singular that at the age of eight years he should be thus able to recognise its value ? Through- out life he was tolerably indifferent to " being laughed," and it became a source to him of strength and popularity; but that he should appreciate it at that time as a secret of such popularity seems to show uncommon acumen. I do not quite know what sympathy he could have won from his father, a most devoted mathe- matician, for a request which he makes amusingly in another letter, written from Mr. Waring's : " My dear Papa. I have a great deal to say. If you write to Mr. Waring about the Algebra, please ask him only to give it me to do when I have plenty of time, and not to make it a regular lesson." We need not follow out at length the " great deal that he has to say," merely noting the implied distaste for algebra as indicating a dislike to mathematics which was always some- thing of a sorrow to the paternal lover of the exact sciences. A later passage in the same letter may be quoted as showing the real bent of his mind : " Dunglass has brought me some 12 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. Scotch pebbles. They are quite beautiful. They will be very nice for my collection. And Lady Home" (mother of Lord Dunglass) "sent me a particular favourite of hers. Was it not kind ? " There are in course of this letter, which covers four sides — you may be sure it was written on a Sunday ! — two distinct wails of home-sickness from the little boy, plucky though he was. :c I do miss you all so much. I do not know what to do at all, and in short am very unjolly." He evidently found this last word aptly descriptive of his feelings, for we have it again on the next page : " Now I know you will think me rather odd, but if I think too much of the pleasure of home it makes me rather unjolly." There is a hint here again of a mental per- ception above the childish. He has realised that the only way of tolerable happiness in his present state is to banish from mind the thought of that which he has temporarily lost. It is a profound truth. Another letter, the last to be quoted from his private school, gives further indication of the future man that he was to be : "A pair of robins seeking a place to build their nest fixed on the sleeve of a coat at the gardens of Hirsel. Was not that curious ? I thought you would like it. The bird hatched the eggs and fledged the young without caring for the multitudes who came to see her house. We had a charity sermon to-day. Mr. Waring preached. I thought it a very beautiful sermon." He worked hard at this private school, and gave every satisfaction to his master. " I had Ill PRIVATE SCHOOL 13 a letter," writes Lady Lubbock, " from Mrs. Entwistle the other day which made me very happy : she had been at Abingdon and saw dear John looking well and happy, and says that Mr. and Mrs. Waring spoke of him in the highest terms and said he was 6 not only a very clever boy but one of the most diligent and painstaking they had in their school.' Of course this account of our darling Boy made my dear Sir John and me very happy" A little later, just before his leaving home for his first term at Eton, his mother writes : " I grieve over parting with him very sadly. He is so very dear and such a delightful com- panion, so talented, so affectionate, so entirely original, entering into everything so delightfully, quite beyond his years ; and I really could not have supposed he was hardly 11, but could well fancy him a clever boy of 16. Then again his love of reading and his very retentive memory give him a great deal of information, and his taste for Natural History makes him an acute observer." Not an impartial estimate, doubtless, but there seems no reason to question its essential justice. The only anxiety that he caused his parents up to this time was on the score of health. As a boy he was always delicate, and constantly suffered from digestive troubles often acute, and perhaps not very well diagnosed. At all events it is evident that after a complete change of treatment, which was not tried however until he was sixteen or seventeen years of age, his health immediately improved and no trace of the delicacy remained. 14 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. Ill But in the meanwhile he suffered severely at intervals, and doubtless the physical suffering had its natural effect on his nervous system, for those who knew him in his childish days state that in spite of his charm and unusual talents he had a temper which he found it very difficult to control, and which was a cause of much trouble to him, up to the age of twelve. It is perhaps this hard mental schooling which enabled him to emerge from those psychic struggles with a control almost more perfect and a serenity almost more complete than I ever remember to have seen possessed by any other human being. Lord Avebury's own comment, in his later years, on the system of education at his private school is that "Mr. Waring was kind, conscien- tious and painstaking; but the education given was not, I think, what Mr. Waring himself would have preferred. It was an excellent pre- paration for the profession of schoolmaster, but not, I think, for life." CHAPTER IV eton (1845-1848) (Age 11-14) It was just before the future Lord Avebury, then seven years of age, went to the private school at Abingdon Abbey that there occurred the event which perhaps more than any other was destined to influence his life. It is noted, by Lord Avebury himself, in the following words : " My father came home one evening in 1841, quite excited, and said he had a great piece of news for me. He made us guess what it was, and I suggested that he was going to give me a pony. * Oh,' he said, ' it is much better than that. Mr. Darwin is coming to live at Down.' I confess I was much disappointed, though I came afterwards to see how right he was." For the moment we may pass that by, with the levity of the little boy himself, to whom the pony would no doubt have been the source of much keener immediate entertainment. Down, it may be noted, is a village about a mile from High Elms, and what the example and the encouragement of the great naturalist meant to him will be revealed in its due place. For 15 16 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. the present we have him at the point of leaving his private school and about to enter the larger world of Eton. The following is an account penned by him- self of his impression of the life and the course of education at Eton. It will be seen that in spite of his criticism, or perhaps as a testimony to its justice, the preparation given him at Mr. Waring's, aided by his own uncommon talents and diligence, enabled him to take a very good position on entering the big school. When I was eleven I went to Eton, and was placed in the " remove," i.e. as high as a boy could be placed. This was rather unfortunate for me as I was in the same division with boys four or five years older than I was, and with whom I had no ehance of competing. The division was a very large one containing over 100 boys, and was consequently divided into two. My place was generally somewhere between the 20th and 25th. At that time the whole education consisted of Latin and Greek with one lesson a week in Geography — confined mainly to Italy, Greece and Asia Minor. We had each week to write out a description of some country, but the master in whose division I was when I first went to Eton attached so little importance to Geography that he never once looked at my productions, which I fear became under the circumstances more and more perfunctory. Neither Arithmetic, Modern Languages, Science, nor Drawing were regarded as essential portions of Education, and they did not enter into the School course. Arith- metic, French, and German had indeed just been started, but they were treated as extras — like Fencing or Dancing. They were only taken if the Parents especially wished it and then in play time. My father did not think they were well taught, and the result was that I never did a sum or had a lesson in any modern language the whole time I was at Eton, nor indeed if I had stayed till I was Captain of the Oppidans should I have done so. The excuse for the iv ETON 17 neglect of Science and modern languages is the great importance of a Classical Education. This I do cordially admit, though it does not seem to me a reason for the course adopted. But unfortunately the result of the system is to defeat the very object which it is intended to secure. So far from giving a Classical Education, the result is to give nine boys out of ten a profound dislike of classical literature. It seems extraordinary that any one should consider that this was a satisfactory education. Nevertheless while condemning the system I gratefully recognise that most of the Eton masters did their best to carry it out effectively. Moreover it was at that time the general type of English Public Schools. The moral tone was good, and our health fairly looked after. Talleyrand is reported to have said in the first half of the last century that our English schools are the best in the world, adding, however, " mais ils sont abominables I " I was between 3 and 4 years at Eton, and went through all the school examinations, reaching what was then known as the Upper Upper Fifth. For a small boy I was fairly good at cricket and fives, but hockey was my favourite game, and I even reached the school " seven," of which I was very proud. At that time Eton boys, especially if they were quick at writing verses and learning by heart, had much more leisure than they have now. I devoted a good deal of mine to Natural History and Geology, in spite of the remonstrances of my Tutor (Mr. Birch), who thought that my leisure might have been better occupied on the Classics. On one occasion we were given " the Bee " as a subject for a theme. I took some pains with it, and my tutor sent for me and asked me confidentially whether it was all true. From what he said I inferred that they rather suspected I was quizzing them, and doubted whether to commend or to flog me. Happily for me they accepted my assurances, indeed both my tutor and Mr. Carter, to whom I was " up " in school for over a year, very wisely went on the principle of believing what we said, the result of which was that we considered it would be mean and unfair not to treat them in the same spirit. Possibly the above criticism will enable us vol. i c 18 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. the better to understand the second of the two following letters from his tutor, which seem to suggest characteristics that we know from other sources to have been absolutely foreign to his mental nature. This is the first of the two, written immediately on the boy's entry into the school. Eton Coll., Wednesday. My dear Sir John — I am happy to tell you that your son has passed a good examination and is placed in the Lower Remove. He seems to have settled very comfortably into Eton ways, and I hope that his career may prove an honourable one. Perhaps you will have the kindness to let me know whether you wish him to be a Private Pupil or not. — I remain, my dear Sir John, yours faithfully, H. M. Birch. Both the above brief note and the following, which is by the same hand, are without the date of the year, but it is apparent that the second is written after the tutor had gained time to become acquainted, as he supposed, with his pupil's character. Eton, December 7. My dear Sir John — Your boy returns to you safely landed in the Fifth Form and with a very tolerable place in his Remove, but I am disappointed that he does not improve in his composition prose and verse more than he does. I think that his natural quickness leads him to put down what comes uppermost without analysing his thought, and in consequence of that he is exceedingly inaccurate. However, I hope that time and pains will remedy these defects. In his conduct and dealing with me he is most amiable and pleasant and is just the same natural boy that he was when he first came to Eton, but I want to make him a sounder scholar. I quite agree with you as to the impropriety of his dabbling into other languages before he has acquired more knowledge of the ancient ones, but I think that it is worth consideration whether he had not better com- IV ETON 19 mence mathematics soon. — I remain, my dear Sir John, yrs. most faithfully, H. M. Birch. It is rather amusing, by the light of later events, to read this censure of the " exceeding inaccuracy " of one who was to prove himself a very model of all that is most accurate and exact. It seems that in spite of the counsel given in the above letter he did succeed in his desire to " dabble " in other studies outside the statutory course of the classics, for we find this later note : " He stayed three years at Eton, leaving in 1848, when he was in Upper Upper Fifth. At that time, excepting half an hour of geography, the boys did nothing but Greek and Latin, not even Arithmetic. Against the advice of his tutor, he read some Natural History and Geology and did (considering that he was much younger than most of the boys in his division) fairly well with the School's work. Still, the system did not suit him, not that he disliked Latin and Greek, but he yearned for other things also." Lord Avebury used to tell an amusing little story by way of illustrating what the Eton authorities of the day regarded as a liberal departure in the direction of a scientific course. His father had several times expressed the wish that a little science could be included in his son's studies, and ultimately, at the beginning of some holidays, the tutor wrote that at last he had been able to do as Sir John Lubbock wished, namely, to introduce " some science " into the holiday task. Sir John, highly pleased, sent for " the task," but the only reference to science 20 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. that he was able to find was the statement — of questionable accuracy — among sentences for translation into Latin prose, that " the Sun and the Moon are Planets." " The system did not suit him." No doubt the nail was hit rightly on the head with that stroke ; and it is indeed somewhat of a Pro- crustean system which would fit every boy, no matter what his mental bent, into the fixed curri- culum of the classics. " He yearned for other things also." That perhaps, combined with his constitutional delicacy at the time, is the ex- planation of the attitude of which his tutor com- plains. But possibly there is more in it than this. It is stated that he did not " dislike " Latin and Greek. His tutor hoped to make him " a sounder scholar," but we may doubt whether his mind was ever really of the type that is attuned readily to the niceties of scholarship. Scholarship is very largely a matter of the form, and it was never the form and always the sub- stance that made appeal to him. His mode of expression was always lucid and entirely adequate to his purposes, but never savouring greatly of " style." It is the language of a man of very fine intellect who would appear to have almost a suspicion of " style " in literature, as a mode of striving after effect which was absolutely distasteful to his natural simplicity. It gives the frequent impression of an almost purposed rejection of the word that might add force, and a deliberate preference for the more usual phrase. Probably it is a quality that has worked in aid of the immense popularity of his writings. ETON 21 Almost certainly it is a quality which we should not find had his tutor been successful in the attempt to make of him a finished scholar. It was not, as it would seem, in any degree because the system, as has been said, did not suit him, that his removal from Eton took place at the early age of fourteen, when he had been there only for the brief space of three years. The exigencies of the ancestral banking business suggested the removal in the first instance, and no doubt the fact that the scholastic course did not seem to be developing his powers along their natural lines caused the idea of that removal to be considered more favourably than might other- wise have been the case alike by himself, by his father, and by his tutor. That these considera- tions had their natural weight is made clear from some notes in his own hand, relative to his early entry into the business. CHAPTER V INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS (1848-1851) (Age 14-17) The notes referred to in the previous chapter serve to show, incidentally, how circumstances were combining to make the boy thoughtful and self-reliant beyond his years, in spite of the natural sensibility of his disposition. Though one of so large a family, he was rather isolated from the others, the next two to him in point of age being girls, so that there was between him and his next brother, Henry, a gap which at that time of life is considerable. It was always his fortune, for good or ill, to have his elders as his chief companions, and the delicacy of his constitution probably attracted him the more to their society. The notes run as follows : In 1848, when I was nearly fifteen, my father's two partners being both in bad health, he had to choose between taking another or bringing me at once into the Bank to assist him. Our firm was then Lubbock, Forster & Co., and we did not join our friends, Robarts, Curtis & Co. till some years later. Having so many children to provide for, he chose the latter alternative and in 1849 I began business. He would not of course under other circumstances have brought me in so early. At the same time he did so with the less reluctance 22 ch.v INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS 23 as practically nothing but Latin and Greek and a (very- little) geography was taught as part of the regular curriculum, and as at Oxford and Cambridge the same system (with of course Mathematics at Cambridge) was adopted. Soon afterwards my father's partners both died, and he and I, with a worthy old clerk (Mr. Higham), carried on the business, so that my father and I could not be away together. I was at first of course very much at sea, and found the City very lonely. No doubt, however, beginning so early gave me a sort of instinct for business. But though I was thus early brought into harness, I had plenty of holidays. My father kindly taught me Mathematics, which like all Science I found interesting, but for which I had no special gift. My father's mathematical genius was in some respects a disadvantage. He could not see difficulties where I did, and though very patient would often at last say in despair, " Well, if Newton does not make it clear to you, I am afraid I cannot. We must go on." In other respects I made good progress, reading seven or eight hours a day and devouring all sorts of books, but especially those on Biology and Geology. My mother's sympathy and kindness were a great help and comfort. My sisters also were invaluable com- panions, but my next brothers of course were at school, and I had no boy of my own age to play with. This threw me a good deal on myself. My health also was not very good. In 1850 I gave my first lecture. It was at Down, on the Wire worm, and was well attended by the villagers. Now I began to realise how right my father was in saying that Mr. Darwin's coming to live at Down was an im- mense advantage to me. He induced my father to give me a microscope, he let me do drawings for some of his books, and I greatly enjoyed my talks and walks with him. My first scientific original work was on some of his collections, and appeared in the Natural History Magazine for January 1853. In 1849 I was elected a member of the Royal Institution, and in 1853 I attended my first meeting of the British Association. In 1854 I was introduced to Sir C. Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker, in 1855 to Kingsley, Prestwich, and Sir John Evans, and joined the Geological Society. In 1856 I met George Busk, Huxley, and Tyndall, and the following year was 24 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. elected a member of the Royal Society. It would be impossible for me to express how much of my real educa- tion I owe to the advice, the sympathy, and the example of these kind friends. It was really a wonderful society into which the boy thus found himself admitted, and never was there a boy better able to make good use of these exceptional advantages ; but it is hardly to be said that it was gay. The element of youth was singularly lacking. Yet elsewhere his natural joy of life found more natural outlets. " I was very fond of cricket," he writes, " and for some years acted as secretary to the West Kent Cricket Club. We used to practise at Chislehurst every Saturday. Being then only 15 I was at first allowed many holidays (from the business), my father knowing that I was working hard. But after the death of my father's partners he and I could not be away together. Moreover Sydenham was our nearest station, so that we had to drive over twenty miles every day." It is worth a moment's pause to realise what it all meant — the boy leaving school at fourteen to go straight into the banking business, and only a year later sharing with his father the responsible position of a working partner — either he or his father bound to be there — as if on his fifteen-years-old shoulders might all the burden be borne on the days when his father, engrossed in the higher mathematics, gave finance a holiday ! And the twenty miles or more of drive ! It is rather a pathetic picture. Perhaps it is no wonder that, with his zeal for acquiring various knowledge, INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS 25 especially his zest for natural history, so fostered by the kind help of Darwin, he adopted a strenu- ous mode of life, early rising and economising the long hours thus gained to the very best advantage. We shall find this a very notable characteristic of the mature man — the time- saving and the time-stretching faculty. His day was not only several hours longer, through- out his life, than that of most even of the busiest men, but it was also packed with wonderful closeness, and into wonderfully tight compart- ments. He acquired the power of concentra- tion on the subject of the moment, and developed it to a very uncommon pitch, so that of him it could be very rarely said that while doing one thing he was thinking of another. He could pass from a problem in finance or politics to a question in Natural History without any effort in the passage, and allowing no loose ends of thoughts about the one to intrude on or interfere with the unembarrassed consideration of the other. His father gave him every encouragement in his Natural History, but always maintained that it stood distinctly on a lower level than Astronomy and Mathematics, being essentially a matter of approximation and estimate, whereas they were exact Sciences. One evening, how- ever, he came back from the City and said that the results of the transit of Venus expedition had been worked out, and that the mean distance of the Earth from the Sun was 92,500,000 miles. He pointed out to his father that they had been brought up to believe it was 95,000,000, and 26 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. that if the Astronomers and Mathematicians could be wrong by such a little trifle as 2,500,000 miles they could hardly lay claim to exact Science. Undoubtedly the father, Sir J. W. Lubbock, was more than a little of a martinet. His austerity was perhaps nicely balanced by the adoring tenderness of Lady Lubbock for her children. The tendency to order things precisely according to his judgment comes out amusingly in the following extract from Mr. Philip Norman's admirable Annals of the West Kent Cricket Club : Sir John William Lubbock, Bart., the eminent mathematician and astronomer, does not seem to have cared much for cricket in his youth, though his name appears once or twice in the records of practice days at Prince's Plain. During his early married life he lived at Mitcham Grove, in a house (now pulled down) which had previously belonged to the Hoares ; but after succeeding to the baronetcy in 1840, he settled permanently at High Elms, which at the beginning of the century had been a mere farm, bought from the Wells family. There, as his sons began to grow up, he made a delightful cricket ground and organised matches in which for some years he used to take part. Having hardly played at all till he was past 40, he was of necessity a very moderate performer, but he enjoyed the exercise, and his matches gave pleasure to many. I remember playing there when quite a little boy. Sir John, on this occasion, marked the positions of the fields by heaps of daisies from which it was deemed treason to stray. He kept a pony saddled at the cricket ground, and mounted and rode off at a rapid pace when his presence was required elsewhere. One of the things that astonished my young mind was his peculiar mode of wearing his pads, or leg-guards ; they were inside his trousers, being strips of india-rubber passed through loops, if I am not mis- taken, so that they remained as fixtures for the day. I have since found that Felix recommends something of the sort in his book called Felix on the Bat. INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS 27 A quaint figure was Mr. Robert Sessions, of the New Inn, Farnborough (now rather an old inn), who always umpired for Sir John, and in the course of the game would make comments, naturally favourable, on the under-hand bowling of the father. It was he who, when expostulated with for not calling an obvious wide bowled by one of the next generation, replied in a stage whisper, " Hush ! hush ! the young gen'lman don't like it." Sir John was father of eight sons, who were all at Eton and at no other school, and are still happily all living. It may without exaggeration be said of them that each has done something worthy of remembrance, while the head of the family, the present Sir John, will always be famous as one of the most useful men of his generation. All the world knows him as a man of science, a politician, a banker, and philanthropist ; but it is now perhaps almost forgotten that though he left Eton too young to secure a place in the eleven, he was in his early days a keen and good cricketer, a left-handed batsman, and a fast, left under-hand bowler. For some time he assisted in the management of the West Kent Club, and several of the scores are entered in his neat handwriting. Long afterwards, when he had almost entirely given up the game, he agreed to play one or two matches for the Lords and Commons. In order to prepare himself he used to get Wells, the Bromley professional, to bowl to him for some weeks regularly in the early morning before he went up to London to business, the result being that he scored well against Harrow and I Zingari. It was highly characteristic of him to take this studious pains in order to do his best in these two matches. Mr. Norman has a note respecting Wells : " Joseph Wells, who kept the china shop and was professional to the West Kent Cricket Club, was father of H. G. Wells, the successful novelist. He performed a remark- able feat in the Kent v. Sussex match of June 26, 1862, bowling four wickets in four successive balls." CHAPTER VI BUSINESS AND SCIENCE (1851-1854) (Age 17-20) For some years the life at High Elms went on in its uneventful but exceedingly strenuous course. Young Lubbock confesses, in his diaries, that he was " lonely," but adds that this was probably of ultimate benefit to him, because it threw him so much on the companionship of books. We may be tolerably sure that even in the drives and train journeys to and fro the City a book of some sort was not long out of his hand. One of his sons told me that on the day that his father first took him into the City, to introduce him to the partners of their business house, Lord Avebury drew a book out of his pocket as' soon as they were seated in the " tube," and said, " I think you will find it a good plan always to have a book with you, in your pocket, to read at odd times," and therewith he became at once so absorbed in his reading as to be quite unconscious of his fellow-travellers and their conversation. He had a mode, as he read, of having in his book a slip of paper, cut to a certain size, on 28 BUSINESS AND SCIENCE 29 which he jotted down in pencil, passages or references to passages which struck him as he read. These slips being tabulated formed a very easily accessible means of reference to all that he had found of most value in the books that he studied from time to time. It was largely by such modes of economising time and the results of his reading that he was able to achieve the immense total of work which he performed during his life. Partly the reason of the loneliness, to which he refers, was that he had gone into the City at so early an age that none of his contempor- aries were yet there ; but that is a condition which he would find improving as the years went on. Moreover, fully occupied as were his days and hours at home, there was much time in them for social enjoyment, riding, cricket, and so on. He played frequently for the West Kent Club, had an average, one season, of 25 J runs per innings, and for several years found time, in the midst of all his avocations, to act as honorary secretary. His diaries of this date abound with references to dances and parties at this or the other house in the very sociable neighbourhood in which High Elms is situated, and he notes, with rather an amusing freedom of criticism, the merits of various young ladies as dancers and companions. A dweller near Bromley at that time writes to me of Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury's father) : " He used, in my young days, to go to and from the railway station in a mail phaeton drawn by a pair of horses, with a post-boy. I 30 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. can hear the rattle of it now as it passed my father's house on the way to Bromley station to catch the 9.19 train. In front was seated Lubbock pere, with a young Lubbock look- ing very demure. Behind were other young Lubbocks playing all sorts of tricks." But it is to be doubted whether Lord Avebury ever was one of those naughty young Lubbocks. He joined the Kent Artillery Militia, and entered into all the duties that it entailed with a characteristic thoroughness. Altogether it was a life which did not lack variety in spite, or by reason, of its industry. He tells us, in his diary, the mode in which he planned out his days — presumably it would be the time scheme for a day on which he did not go up to the City for business — and certainly its perusal is enough to take the breath away of the ordinary idle mortal who lives as leisurely as he may. It is on Christmas Day of 1852 that he makes this entry : " Generally speaking, I spend my day as follows : — Get up at | past six, dress, say my prayers, read the Psalms and Chapters and go to Papa with my mathematics, which takes about ten minutes, before breakfast. From 8 1 till 9, read natural history ; 9 to \ past, prayers ; \ past 9 to \ past 11, work with the microscope ; \ past 11 to 1, read natural history ; 1 to i past, lunch. I generally go out for an average of two hours in the afternoon, and do \ an hour poetry and \ an hour political economy ; tea, \ past 4 to 5 ; till 5 J more science ; | hour's natural history ; 6 to 7 J, history ; 1\ to 8, whist ; 8 to \ past, history ; 8 J to 9 J, mathe- BUSINESS AND SCIENCE 31 matics ; 9 J to 10, sermons (if I read them any- later they invariably send me to sleep, and as it is I cannot always keep awake) ; 10 to 11 J, German, which is the only thing that keeps me awake ; 11 J to 12, prayers ; 12, Bed." He writes Bed, in the diary thus, with a big " b," as surely he well may, after a day thus disposed. The nice apportionments of the quarters of hours, as three-quarters of an hour for " whist " (it is not said what happened if the rubber were unfinished), is very characteristic of the exact disposition of his time which resulted in such an immense output of mental activity. He adds : " I do rather over 8| hours' work a day, but the afternoon part is rather irregular, as I often go out three or even four hours, and sometimes not at all." By the light of later entries it is clear that these strenuous days had much relaxation in the following years. What has to be recognised with less satisfaction is the frequency of what he writes of as " attacks " — of a gastric nature. Probably he was at this time seriously over- working his young strength, but the natural powers of his constitution, aided by the change of treatment already spoken of, triumphed, and at the end of a long life Lord Avebury was certainly able to look back on a more generous gift of health and energy than is granted to most men. We may notice the short spells, often of half an hour, into which his different studies were divided. In later years it was always a surprise to me to note how instantly, and without any 32 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK apparent effort, he could switch off his mind, as it were, from the discussion of some intricate point of finance — say the involved fortunes of the Peruvian bondholders — and discuss such a problem of biology as parthenogenesis — and there can be little doubt that this ability was fostered by the habit that he formed thus early of moving quickly from one subject to another. It was a faculty which he had deliberately trained, for the sake, primarily, of its utility in the bank- ing business, where it was essential that he should be able to turn at once from a topic with which he was occupied and give his attention to a client or to any question which incidentally came up. Doubtless, moreover, it was a just economy of the brain cells, for the change of study from one subject to another provides as good, if not better, a relaxation as leisure. Else- where he gives an account of the disposition of his hours of study, showing how predominant was his interest in Natural History, and indicating some points of interest in his education. " When not at the Bank," he writes, " my time was mostly spent in study, distributed something as follows : Chemistry, 1 hour ; Ger- man, | ; History, 1 ; Mathematics, 1 ; Natural History, 4 ; Literature, lj. This year my father was High Sheriff and in February I went with him to the East Kent nomination. Mr. Kirk- patrick was my father's chaplain. In March I went again with my father to Maidstone for the Assizes. Visited Kit's Coty House, which first roused my interest in Archaeology. I did some drawings for Mr. Darwin. I was far BUSINESS AND SCIENCE 33 from well and several times in bed for days together. " We used to have a good many scientific men at H. E., specially Mathematicians. " In the May of this year Wheatstone brought in his new Stereoscope and Pseudoscope. " Dined I think for the first time at Morden College on the 24th June. " I was working at Crustacea. " In December went with my father and mother to stay with Whewell. Met Kingsley." His first published paper was a Monograph in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, for January 1853. It was a description of a new free-swimming species from the Atlantic belonging to the family Calanidae, and forming the type of a new Genus. The specimens belonged to Mr. Darwin's collection. The paper was illustrated by an excellent plate, and he named the Crustacean Labidocera Darwinii. This paper was followed in 1853 and 1854 by three others describing several more new species belonging to the same family, partly from Mr. Darwin's collection, and partly from that of the College of Surgeons. The plates for these papers were all illustrated by himself, and he also made for Mr. Darwin some of the drawings which appeared in his great work on Barnacles. In 1853 he attended for the first time a meeting of the British Association held that year at Hull. He stayed with Archdeacon Creyke, who had been one of the original Com- mittee of the Association, and from thence went VOL. I D 34 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. to stay near Manchester with his great-uncle, Mr. Entwistle. This was a visit destined to have a very considerable influence on his life, for it was there that he first met his future wife, Miss Hordern. This young lady was an orphan, daughter of the late Reverend Peter Hordern of Chorlton cum Hardy. It seems that she stayed a great deal with her relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Haigh, at Liverpool. The young fellow admits himself to have been greatly impressed even at the first meeting, for he writes later, in his diary : " First saw dear Nelly. I recollect it as if it was yesterday. Uncle William and I were walk- ing in the garden. Aunt Hannah and Nelly came and joined us. I was immensely struck by her, and persuaded my mother to ask her down to High Elms." In spite of this frank avowal, however, it is apparent that his judgment was by no means so disturbed that he was in any haste to disclose his sentiments, and he shows himself curiously able to take an impartial view of the young lady's character. It seems that he went on from his uncle's at Manchester to stay with the Haighs at Liverpool, where, no doubt, he made the lady's better acquaintance, but his mother responded liberally to his suggestion of inviting her to their home at High Elms, and there he had frequent and prolonged opportunity of know- ing her intimately. She was at High Elms in January 1854, when he had one of his periodical attacks of illness, and he records that " Nelly Hordern has been a very kind nurse to me and BUSINESS AND SCIENCE 35 played chess with me a good deal. She is I think a great favourite here, and deservedly, for she is very dear. She has however hardly enough strength of mind, and is of rather too melancholy a disposition for me. With some these would be a great merit, accompanied as they are with a very sweet and pliable disposition and great good feeling." It appears, however, that this strictly critical stage was not of long duration. After this first visit Miss Hordern came frequently to High Elms, and he found himself growing more and more attracted by her. CHAPTER VII SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE (1854-1856) (Age 20-22) In 1854, after going out for his training with the Kent Artillery Militia at Dover, he went abroad for the first time, and in Paris made the acquaintance of some of the leading French men of science. M. Jules Haime took him to a sitting of the Institut, and M. Fizeau showed him experiments, which interested him greatly, at the Observatory. It was in this year that he commenced his study of the habits of ants — a subject to which he devoted so many days and hours at a later time — and gave his first lecture on them. He made the acquaintance of Sir Charles Lyell, to whom in the spring of 1855 we find a letter asking the eminent geologist to propose him as a member of the Geological Society. In sending a gracious consent to this request Sir Charles makes reference to an interesting dis- covery of some remains of a mammoth ox which Lubbock had found in a gravel pit at Green Street Green, near High Elms. At the same time and place he had also found some cherty 36 OH, vii SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE 37 pebbles, which he inferred must have come from the Weald at a time when the river Cray rose much farther to the south than at present. Sir Charles Lyell writes : 53 Haeley Street, June 16, 1855. My dear Mr. Lubbock — I shall have great pleasure in proposing you as a member of the Geological Society. I am glad to hear of more fossil bones being found at Green Street Green, for I was sorry not to be able to see the exact bed when with you, owing to the removal of some of the deposit which contained the bones. Last week I examined with Mr. Prestwich the valleys of the Chalk between Henley on Thames and the escarpment of the chalk which overlooks the Vale of Oxfordshire. They are counterparts of the valleys between you at High Elms and the escarpment at Chevening, &c, having deep beds of angular or sub- angular flints, 14 feet thick or more, in their flattish bottoms. But Prestwich had no example to show me of remains of extinct quadrupeds, and I promised to take him to the Green Street Green cave some afternoon, for he will hardly ever sacrifice a whole day. If we go, after I return from Oxford, where I am to be dubbed D.C.L. next week, I will give you notice and hope you will join us. Prestwich is inclined to doubt the ferruginous clinkers dug up at High Elms having come from the Wealden and wishes to make them out of tertiary origin, but I wish him to see them. They occur in the Green Street Green pit, tho' not very common. We are making progress in classifying the gravels of the Thames, but it is a laborious work and very curious in the details. — Believe me, truly yours, Chas. Lyell. In June of this year he and Kingsley were staying with Mr. Riversdale Grenfell at Ray Lodge, Maidenhead, and one morning they started for a long walk before breakfast. In the great gravel pit near the Taplow Station they 38 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK c„ were fortunate enough to find a great part of the skull of a Musk Ox. This species is now confined to Greenland and Arctic America. No fossil remains of it had up to that time been found in Britain, or indeed in Europe ; and the special interest was the additional evidence of the Glacial period which was afforded by this discovery of an Arctic Quadruped. The Mam- moth and Woolly-haired Rhinoceros had indeed been met with, but their presence did not neces- sarily imply Arctic conditions. Since then the Reindeer, Glutton, and several other Arctic species have been determined. Another frag- ment of the Musk Ox was shortly afterwards found in the Valley of the Avon, and Lubbock himself met with a third at Green Street Green in Kent. The Taplow specimen was described in the Geological Journal, and is referred to in the following letter from Sir J. Prestwich : Mark Lane, 10/7/55. My dear Sir — I am rejoiced to hear of the discovery of the Musk Ox in the Maidenhead gravel. There are several other large pits in the valley gravel which may be worth examining. Could you also enquire whether any bones were found in the gravel cutting of the Wycombe railway at the hill (Folly Hill) adjoining Maidenhead. I enquired but was not quite satisfied with the answer I obtained, altho' it was in the negative and agreed with my general views on the subject. On Saturday last, instead of going to Staines, I went to Brentwood and Ongar. I shall most probably there- fore go to Staines on Saturday next, and in that case shall require the map which I herewith send. If you let me have it on Friday evening or Saturday morning before 12, it will do. Sir C. Lyell and I went to Grays last week, but shall have to return there or to Ilford or Erith probably on SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE 39 Friday or Monday next. We shall not remain long at the pits, but could show them to you and possibly, if you could accompany us, might have to leave you there, as I fear there might not be room in the carriage of Mr. Meeson, who proposes to take us to some other pits in the neighbourhood. The Grays pits are however the great features, and these I shall be happy to show you and to join you again there. — Believe me to remain, very truly yours, Jn. Prestwich. The following letter from Charles Darwin refers to the same discovery : Down, 19lh July 1855. Dear Lubbock — I had a note from Lyell this morning, in which he says you have found the first Ovibos moschatus ever discovered fossil in England ! I must congratulate you on such a capital discovery. Considering the habits of Ovibos, and the nature of the drift-beds, I declare I think it one of the most interesting discoveries in fossils made for some years. ... I con- gratulate you, and may this be the first of many inter- esting geological observations. — Yours very truly, Ch. Darwin. I wish you could have come here on Tuesday. Adios ! With such encouragement as this from the great men of science, it is no wonder that his young enthusiasm was fostered and grew keener than ever. In 1856 he wrote a paper in the Transactions of the Entomological Society on some Ento- mostraca, collected in the Atlantic Ocean by Dr. Sutherland, and in the following year on eight new species which he found in the English Channel during a holiday spent at Weymouth. Here, for the first time, he met Mr. and Mrs. Busk, who soon became, and till their death remained, close and intimate friends. 40 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. On the death of Professor Busk (as he later became), in 1886, Sir John wrote to his widow : " 1 need not say how grieved I am at the sad news, and how I sympathise with you all. Busk's friendship has been one of the great privileges of my life, and to his example and advice I have been deeply indebted. It is an immense thing to have known anyone with such a noble nature, so able, so good and so unselfish. ... I shall always cherish his memory." He was, indeed, singularly fortunate in his friends, and had a generous capacity for recognis- ing that great good fortune. A brother of Lord Avebury, one of the nearest to himself in age, assured me that Lord Avebury owed to the great Charles Darwin even a larger debt in the respect of character formation than in the encouragement and direction of his mental gifts. The reader will hardly fail to perceive the peculiar danger to which his circumstances and abilities laid him open, as a very young man. He was early taken from the discipline and com- panionship of school, and brought into the society of his elders. His father was something of a martinet, belonging rather to the old- fashioned school of parents, and holding himself much aloof from his children, though giving them all encouragement in their cricket, riding, and so on. They gave him ready and unquestion- ing obedience, but it is hardly to be thought that there was warm sympathy or real friend- ship between them. The mother, on the other hand, bestowed on her eldest son a degree of admiration and worship which can seldom be SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE 41 lavished with safety on the young human being. His brothers were considerably younger than himself, and he was continually in the company of persons to whom his growing knowledge of natural science seemed scarcely less than miraculous. It was before the day of " Nature study " and the general encouragement given in schools to such pursuits. From the very first he appears to have had a gift of facile exposition which was to make him an admirable lecturer. But for the moment it is evident that the combination of these qualities and these conditions must have put him in much peril of acquiring that intel- lectual arrogance which is most easily indicated by the word priggishness. Intellectual arrogance is the very last crime with which the enemies, if he had enemies, of Lord Avebury could conceivably charge his formed character, and in its formation it is well to be believed that a great part was played by that learned, wise, and good man to whom he went eagerly for instruction. While revering the learning and the wisdom, young Lubbock no doubt unconsciously assimilated the goodness — the fortitude with which pain and illness were borne, the patience with which was endured the scarcely less grievous misconstruction which many persons of the best intentions, but of the most narrow minds, placed on Mr. Darwin's; great services to science, and above all the singular humility which deprecated all credit to self for any exceptional mental faculty or achievement. The modesty which was char- acteristic of Lord Avebury was a very eminent 42 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. characteristic of his great master in science also. There has been some little discussion about the time of his life at which he really did begin visiting Mr. Darwin. It will be remembered that he was still so much of a child when Mr. Darwin came to Down that when his father bade him guess what good thing had come for him, he guessed " a pony." But the regular visits began when he was no longer, indeed, a school- boy, but of an age when most boys now, and even then, would be at school. In a word, he saw much of Mr. Darwin at the time of his life when a lad is perhaps the most readily and, at the same time, the most permanently in- fluenced, for good or for ill, by an example that makes strong appeal to him. Science, however, in spite of these " finds," and of the notice into which they helped to bring him, was not engrossing the whole of his attention. Miss Hordern came often, as a guest, to High Elms in 1854 and 1855, and a result of these frequent visits was that on Friday, October 13, there is the laconic entry in his diary : " Wrote to Nelly to ask her to marry me," followed, after the decent interval of a week, by the equally brief, but satisfactory note, on the 20th, " Nelly said she would." He adds, on the 25th : " Everybody seems pleased, and all are as kind as possible. We are to live at first at High Elms." They were married in April 1856, and went to live, as previously determined, with Sir John and Lady Lubbock at High Elms. There are not many alive now who are able to remember SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE 43 Lord Avebury's first wife at the time of her marriage, but all who do agree in speaking of her as a bright intelligent girl, of much charm of manner. Marriage did not long divert the young lover of science from his work. He wrote a paper in the Entomologist's Annual for 1856, " On the Respiration of Insects," and in the same year made several excursions with Kingsley, which he always greatly enjoyed, besides that already mentioned which led to the discovery of the Musk Ox. In 1857 Kingsley having, with his usual impetuous kindness, under- taken to give a lecture on gravels, applied to him for assistance, and the lecture eventually led to the delightful essay on this subject in the Prose Idylls. The variety of Lubbock's interest and industry was really remarkable. During all these years he was paying a close attention to the banking business, and initiated some reforms therein, which will be mentioned in the following chapter. Yet in 1858, when the Philological Society con- templated issuing a new dictionary, he was asked to participate and did not refuse, eventually agreeing to read Borrow and Evelyn's Diary for the purpose — a very pleasant labour for a man of leisure, but a wonderful undertaking for one of his multifarious interests. Amongst other letters from Huxley on scientific subjects, written about this date, it may be worth while to quote one as a sample of their correspondence. 44 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK c. Jermyn Street, Sept. 15th, 1858. My dear Lubbock — I have been greatly interested in what you tell me respecting the wide occurrence of the " vitelligenous " glands in Insects. I was quite unaware they had been described, but I had not looked into the matter, particularly as it was only a collateral point in my paper. Von Siebold so far as I recollect makes no mention of these glandular bodies, which is the more misleading as he is particularly well up in Insect anatomy. I am very much obliged to you for drawing my attention to the fact that these bodies have been described already, and I will put a note about them into my paper. If you will let me put any of your new facts into it, the work will be all the more valuable. I have been making no discoveries. On the contrary, with a more than Roman virtue and stoicism, I pur- posely left my microscope behind — knowing very well that the work I had to do would not be done, if I took it. I have been very busy working at my " Oceanic Hydrozoa" and the Croonian Lecture, which was not written when I delivered it. Both are I am happy to say nearly finished. I used to work from half past eight in the morning till two, and then stroll about all the rest of the day. I am sorry to say I shall be unable after all to come to Leeds [where the annual meeting of the British Association was to be held], the death of a connexion of mine having upset all my arrangements. It is very annoying but cannot be helped. — Ever yours very truly, T. H. Huxley. For some time young Lubbock had been preparing a paper on the Daphnia, the so-called Freshwater Flea, though it is really a crustacean, which was eventually published in the Philo- sophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and led to his election as an F.R.S. in 1858. There are letters connected with this paper from Huxley, and also from Professor Owen, speaking of it in very high terms, but they are SCIENCE AND MARRIAGE 45 somewhat too technical to be of interest to others than entomologists. They sufficiently show, however, the reputation that he was already acquiring among contemporary scientists not only for careful and industrious, but also for entirely original work. The following portion of a letter from Charles Darwin refers to the same paper : Down, Sunday Mornings 1857. Dear Lubbock — At the Philosophical Club last Thursday, I overheard Dr. Sharpey speaking to Huxley in such high and warm praise of your paper, and Huxley answering in the same tone that it did me good to hear it. And I thought I would tell you, for if you still wish to join the Royal Society, I should think (Sharpey being influential in Council and Secretary) there would be no doubt of your admission. Even if you were not admitted the first year it cannot be thought the least disgraceful. I am not aware, but perhaps you have been already proposed. — Believe me, dear Lubbock, yours sincerely, C. Darwin. CHAPTER VIII "THE ORIGIN OF, SPECIES " (1856-1860) (Age 22-26) It was a curiously patriarchal establishment to which young Lubbock had brought home his wife. There were the old people, his father and mother, the young menage, and, besides, a large number of his brothers and sisters. The brothers were so far removed from him in years and in mode of thought that he could write of them in his diary comprehensively as " the boys," rather in a paternal than a fraternal manner. Then children were born to the young couple, in the order and at the dates that may be seen by reference to the family pedigree, first a daughter, Amy, later to become Mrs. Mulholland, and now Mrs. Van Zandt, and then John, the present Lord Avebury. Young Lubbock was at this time a slight, good-looking man, of medium height, with a great kindliness and intelligence of expression, and possessed of reserves both of physical and mental power of which his aspect did not give promise. At cricket he was a hard hitter and fast scorer. 46 oM.vin -THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" 47 His diary notes the hitting of two consecutive fivers on the West Kent ground. While science was, no doubt, his absorbing hobby, it did not preclude an attention to the bank which enabled him not only to carry on its routine work with success but even to initiate some useful new developments. He suggested to the London Bankers the adoption of the system known as the Country Clearing. Up to this time Bankers in London, receiving for col- lection from their customers cheques drawn on banks in any other town, sent them by post to the Banks on which they were drawn. These Banks then ordered payment of the amount, in many cases less a commission, to the Banker from whom they were received. It was estimated that on an average every 10 cheques involved four letters, or one letter to every 2| cheques. The proposal was that the London Bankers should hold a " clearing " and present to one another all the cheques on the Country Banks for which each London Banker was agent, and that Country Banks should send up all such cheques to London to be dealt with in the same way. The London Bankers were startled at the novelty of the suggestion, and felt doubtful whether it could be practically worked. They asked young Lubbock to attend a meeting of head clerks and go into the details with them. This he did, and after a long discussion Mr. Kentish of Glyns moved, and Mr. Moules of Robarts' seconded a resolution that the plan should be recommended to the Committee of 48 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. Bankers. It was adopted by them, and Lubbock drew up the rules, which have been in operation ever since. They were sent down by each Bank to their Country Correspondents, and met with general approval. The following letter from Charles Darwin is worthy of quotation, as showing both how highly the famous evolutionist already appreciated the works and gifts of Lubbock, who was still, it is to be remembered, only in his twenty-sixth year, and also as indicating the astonishment, which we must all share, that with such various calls on his time he was able to accomplish so much. Down, Feb. 15, 1860. My dear Lubbock — Many thanks for Anthropo- logical Review returned. Thanks also about buds and ovary. I wish I had remembered your discussion. I have now alluded to it in 2nd Edition. Taking the whole sense of Miiller's pages, especially one passage further on, I still think he meant to say that buds and germs were essentially the same, but it is far more doubtful than I supposed. I have been reading your address to Ent. Soc. ; and the number of first rate papers to which you refer is quite appalling. How do you find time to search up so much matter ? I have nothing else to do, and do not hear of half so many papers. It is very unfair of you ! Do you take in the Zeitschaft fur Wissen. Zoolog. ; if so, can you lend me vol. xvii. p. 1, with Landois' " On Noises of Insects " ? Also can you lend me Desmarest on " Crustacea," — a thick pinkish volume, if you have it. I want to look at sexual differences. I have been looking at your papers and figures in March and May, and have been fairly astonished (for I had nearly forgotten) at the wonderful structure of the geniculated antenna of male ; but I wish you had figured both antennae, i.e. the pair, in their proper position : I should have liked to have given a copy in a wood cut. VIII THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES" If you ever arrive at any definite conclusion, either wholly or partially for or against Pangenesis, I should very much like to hear ; for I settled some time ago, that I should think more of Huxley's and your opinion, from the course of your studies and clearness of mind, than of that of any other man in England. H. Spencer's views, I hear from him, are quite different from mine : he says he shall think over the subject, but apparently he does not yet quite understand what I mean. There is a rather nice Review of you in last Athenaeum and a very unnice one of my book ; I suspect, from two or three little points, by Owen. — Ever yours very truly, C. Darwin. This year (1860) was remarkable in the annals of science for the publication of Darwin's great work on the Origin of Species. Writing to Dr. (Sir J.) Hooker on March 3, 1860, he gives the following table of those who went with him in his conclusions : x Geologists. Zoologists and Palaeontologists. Physiologists. Botanists. Lyell Ramsay Jukes H. D. Rogers Huxley J. Lubbock L. Jenyns (to large extent) Searles Wood Carpenter Sir H. Holland (to large extent) Hooker R. C Watson Asa Gray (to some extent) Dr. Boott (to large extent) Thwaites The Origin of Species raised a storm of con- troversy, and even of obloquy, on the head of an author so greatly daring as to disturb the ideas of the creation story in which mankind had hitherto — or at all events until the slightly earlier publication of Ly ell's Geology — been brought up. (Lubbock was, of course, on the v," which I send you herewith. I regret not being able to send you also those of last year, because I have no copy of them left. In German I have not published anything this year, because I am going to publish a work on Troy with 4 or 5 plans, 1 map, and with the engravings of more than 1200 Trojan terra- cottas or other antiquities discovered at Ilium. I thought I could not do better than to extract from my German manuscript, which is going to be printed, a summary account which I send you enclosed. The latter has been written in a great hurry, and I beg you to excuse the blunders it contains, but I am very busy just now, and I could not write it better in the few moments I have at my disposal. I intend to continue the excavations on the 1st February next with great zeal, and, if it is agreeable to you I shall have great pleasure to write you every week of the result of my exertions. I shall now dig with great vigour to bring to light the ancient Temple of Minerva, to which will no doubt lead me the substruction wall which Mr. Calvert has assuredly pointed out to you, and which seems to cover the ancient slope of the entire 1 Daily Telegraph, August 26, 1872. SCIENCE AND POLITICS 143 N.E. corner of the Mount. At the same time I shall prosecute with the greatest energy the excavations East and West of the Great Tower, in order to lay bare a great portion of the ancient walls of circumclusion, which Homer ascribes to Neptune and Apollo. To the East of the Tower I have great hopes to find in the upper layers the Temple of Apollo, built by Lysimachus, and, 14 or 15 metres below it, the ancient one which is mentioned in the Iliad, I am sure that from the modern Apollo Temple derive all those Corin- thian columns which you will have noticed in a small excavation, and almost at the surface, at the foot of the south-east corner of the Mount. The Triglyph Clock, which I found in the ruins of the Lysimachus' Minerva Temple, and of which I send you herewith a copy, proves, of course, that this Temple was of Doric order, and, this being the oldest order of architecture, I have no doubt that I shall find the ancient Minerva Temple to be built in the same style. I am going to present to your British Museum a mould of my metope, which Mr. Newton thinks to be a little earlier than the time of Lysimachus. Professor KovfiavovS-qs here is of Mr. Newton's opinion, and thinks that master- piece to have been made between the epoch of Pericles and Alexander the Great. You have doubtless visited on the islands of Thera and Therassia the ruins of the prehistoric buildings, which the members of the French school here have brought to light there by their excavations and which are covered, on an average, with 68 feet of volcanic ashes. The latter have, as the layers of those islands show, been thrown out by that gigantic central volcano, by the lava of which Thera and Therassia have been formed and which must have disappeared about 1500 years before our era, and archaeology therefore ascribes to those ruins an age of about 2000 years before Christ. The objects found there are conserved here in the French school, and I have examined them yesterday again most carefully in order to discover some resem- blance with the Trojan antiquities, but I can assure you there is none whatever. Only one copper saw has been found there, and no other vestige of metal. Of flint saws there are but very few, all bad black flint and badly made ; at Troy nearly all are of white flint and 144 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH well made. Female faces you see on none of the vases, but still many of the latter are made to represent the woman, for they have two breasts and a navel. Many Trojan vases, and particularly of those in a less depth than 7 metres, have also 2 female breasts and a navel, but no female face, but then the shape of those vases is altogether different from those found in Thera and Therassia. If the Trojan vases have ornaments they have always been carved in the clay when it was still soft, and if the Trojan vases or other terra-cottas are coloured they never present more than one colour, whilst the ornamentation of the Thera and Therassia vase is never carved and always painted by various colours. I have neither found the slightest resemblance in the quality of the terra-cotta. These round pieces of terra-cotta without ornamentation have been found there which resemble a little those volcano and carrousel shaped pieces of Troy, but the quality of the clay is inferior to any I found in Ilium, also a broken piece of an ornamented one was found, but the ornamentation consists merely of points which are stuck in on the sides of the piece, and not on its basis as in Troy. The Thera and Therassia funnels of terra-cotta are of immense size and covered with painted ornaments, while the Trojan funnels from 14 to 3 m. depth are only 6 to 8 cem. long, and unpainted. On the whole it is impossible for me to say which terra-cottas show more civilization, those of the two islands or of Troy, because they are completely different. The only resem- blance I find between the ruins of Thera and Therassia and those of Troy is the architecture, for, like the Trojan houses on the virgin soil and like the Great Tower and the walls in the N. side of Ilium, all houses and enclosures of the primitive inhabitants of Thera and Therassia consisted of stones joined with clay ; but I have seen there no wall thicker than 40 centimetres. I beg leave to send you herewith also some photo- graphs of a part of the antiquities which I discovered last year at Ilium in a depth of from 5 to 9 metres ; these same objects will appear in my present work in 4to, together with all the curiosities I found this year. If you wish to have a photograph of the most ancient Trojan antiquities, say of those objects found in 16 to 19 m. in depth, I shall be able to satisfy you, for I begin SCIENCE AND POLITICS 145 to-morrow to photograph my whole Trojan collection, each layer separately. I still beg leave to send you herewith a book I wrote four years ago on Troy ; prefaces are never read in Paris, but, pray, do me the favour to read the preface of my book, for it describes my adventurous life. — I am, with profound respect, your Lordship's admirer, Doctor Henry Schliemann. Sir John Lubbock, Bart., London. Pray, my Lord, send me a copy of your report when it is published. I regret very much that you did not come to Athens, for I would have been so happy to show you all my Trojan antiquities, and science would have greatly gained by it if you had seen them. Any advice you may be pleased to give me regarding the excavations at Troy will be followed with gratitude. Mr. Gladstone's continued interest in the question of the ancient metals is shown in the following note of the same year : 11 Carlton House Terrace, S.W., November 22nd, 1872. Dear Sir J. Lubbock — I hope you will go to see General de Cesnola's collection of Cypriote remains at 61 Great Russell Street. I have often pleaded for the recognition of the Copper Age, which is the Age described by Horace ; and the difficulty is the want of adequate remains. I have been obliged to allow that though there were very remarkable remains in Copper, I could not point to them in quantity. At General de Cesnola's house, yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing a Copper knife and small axe (as well as the pain of breaking the knife point in trying whether it was flexible), and of his numerous weapons and instru- ments in G. Russell Street the General tells me that one-third are Copper. — Yours very faithfully, W. E. Gladstone. Recording a life in which so very much was accomplished as in that of Sir John Lubbock's, and in noting, year by year, the results of his VOL. I L 146 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK on. extraordinary power and facility of work, it is difficult to avoid giving the impression of a man going at breathless speed, of one totally absorbed in his many projects and practical and scientific interests, of one who can have had no spare time for indulging the domestic affections and enjoying the domestic life. Such a picture would be very different indeed from a true one of Sir John. So far from the impression that he gave being one of breathless haste, as it were of an animated hurri- cane rushing from one sphere to another of activity, the atmosphere that he bore about him was invariably one of the most serene, unruffled calm. More than that, it was a calm which seemed as if it could not possibly be ruffled. His serenity, in peculiarly trying circumstances, more than once struck those who witnessed it as so re- markable that they have been disposed to ask if it must not be a cold nature that could be thus unruffled. The truth was far otherwise. Few men have been endowed by nature with sensibilities so keen and so nearly feminine in their delicacy. In all the domestic relations, as son, husband, and parent, he was most tenderly devoted ; and no greater testimony of this affection could be cited than the devotion, the love, and the trust which he inspired in return. Devotion and love are perhaps not uncommon sentiments on the part of children towards parents : that full trust and confidence, as of equal to equal and of friend to friend, with which Sir John's children repaid him his affection for them, is very much less frequent. The gentleness of his manner had a great charm for all children, and he perfectly understood the SCIENCE AND POLITICS 147 value they attach to being treated and talked to seriously — not as if they were by nature comic actors eternally condemned to play the buffoon. By virtue of this seriousness he found himself made free of their society and intimacy ; and by inviting them, as if they, equally with himself, were interested in scientific research, to observe the jewelled brilliance, as seen through the microscope, of an apparently dingy beetle's wing, he would quickly fascinate them with the delights of those investigations in which he himself de- lighted. The observations on some of his insect friends could hardly, with his varied avocations, have been so complete, had he not been able to enlist his children and their governess as enthusi- astic students and observers with him. Sir John suffered a very deep grief this year in the loss of his mother. It is little wonder that she had been the fondest and most admiring of mothers to him, and her letters, far too sacred to transcribe, give fervent expression to her adora- tion (the word is really not too highly pitched) for this very remarkable eldest son. We have seen how she appraised his character at a very early age, and the passage of the years only confirmed her in the original high estimate. Sir John was devoted to her, accepting all her admira- tion with the simple gratitude that was natural to him, yet never permitting himself to be misled, by that inevitably partial appreciation, into any lack of sense of proportion. He was never, at any period of life, later than his teens, in even momentary danger, so far as I have been able to discover, of being " spoilt," as the common 148 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. phrase goes, by the atmosphere of adulation with which he was surrounded. It would have been little wonder, indeed, had his valuation of his own talents been a little distorted. We have seen the estimate in which his contributions to science were already held, at a comparatively early period of his life, by the greatest scientists of the day, and it is a judgment that must for ever silence the cheap cynicism of that criticism which proclaimed him " a great scientist among bankers, a great banker among the scientists." Darwin, Lyell, Tyndall, Huxley, to name only a few, have given their liberal witness to the worth of his original contributions to the natural science of which they were common devotees. The comment of the first-named alone on the Pre- historic Times were enough to establish the fame of any man of science. I cannot resist telling you how excellently well, in my opinion, you have done the very interesting chapter on savage life. Though you have necessarily only compiled the materials, the general result is most original. But I ought to keep the term original for your last chapter, which has struck me as an admirable and profound discussion. It has quite delighted me, for now the public will see what kind of man you are, which I am proud to think I discovered a dozen years ago. I do sincerely wish you all success in your election [to Parliament] and in politics ; but after reading this last chapter you must let me say : oh dear ! oh dear ! oh dear ! — Yours affectionately, Ch. Darwin. The above was written in June 1865. There is no doubt that Prehistoric Times did open the public eye to an appreciation of Sir John, as Darwin predicted, but in the wonderful mass of SCIENCE AND POLITICS 149 legislative and other work which he accomplished afterwards, his scientific light became, except to those who, being men of science themselves, really knew the facts, rather hidden under a bushel. It is amusing to read the school-boyish enthusi- asm with which Schliemann, in the spring of the following year, writes to Sir John of his further Trojan discoveries : Troy, 20th May 1873. Your Excellency — Hurrah the Skaeangate, which consists of two separate gates, the one 6 metres 13 centimetres distant from the other ; hurrah the copper bolts with which they were shut ; hurrah the house of Priamos, which is the lower one just N.E. of the gate, for, as your Excellency will see, the upper one was only built when the lower one, as well as the Skaeangate and the paved road, were covered 10 feet high with calcinated rubbish. In the lower house I found an enormous quantity of wonderful antiquities, and amongst them an owl-headed Minerva, the protecting divinity of Troy, of terra-cotta 60 centimetres high and with engraved princely ornaments ; another owl-headed Minerva with an immense shield, holding in each arm hoses (dy/ce (Faithchy, Fahy), now Green ; Coi3]?ice (Coigriche), now L'Estrange ; Bonnan, now Brown ; cia]?, now Black, etc., etc. But the more purely Celtic we admit them to be, the more hopeless would be any attempt to give them self-govern- 1 We, of course, would write these feminine genitive endings " ae," but why " mei " — not agreeing in gender ? VOL. I S 258 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. ment. I am glad to see the Duke of Argyll quoting Prendergast. I copied those two passages out of him last year, and they are valuable as written by one of the Nationalists. You will forgive my insisting on the risk of minimizing the distinctly Celtic nature of the Irish population. Temperament, features, history, all com- bine to support their claim to be regarded as Celts to a far more complete degree than either Highlanders, Galloway men or Welsh. In Man, where the speech is Celtic, the people are mainly Norse, so they are in Lewis, but in Skye, Celtic. From the above it appears that the place, in order of precedence, of the Archpirate of the period was just one above that of the Archbishop. It had been suggested that the said Maccus was an ancestor of the Maxwell family, but Sir Herbert seems inclined to disown him. Professor Huxley writes on the same subject : 4 Marlborough Place, N.W., July 24>th, 1887. My dear Lubbock — I am afraid that my Unionist proclivities are also sufficiently notorious to damage my chance of being regarded as an unprejudiced witness in respect of the ethnology of the three Kingdoms. But, luckily for me, I said my say on the subject fifteen or sixteen years ago in a Sunday lecture on " The Fore-fathers and Fore-runners of the English people " delivered on January 9th, 1870. There is a very good report of it in the Pall Mall Gazette of the 10th. It brought a nest of hornets about my ears, English and Irish. I summed up the points which I thought most important in an article " On some fixed points in British Ethnology," which is reprinted in my Critiques and Addresses — an interesting volume which for some reason or other the British public has never properly appreciated — though they go on buying other produc- tions of mine which, so far as I can see, are not a bit better. I have my hands full just now ; but I will turn over your suggestion in my mind. As to the facts of the case, I imagine that there can be xxi « NATIONALITIES " & POLITICS 259 no doubt of the absurdity of the nationality plea on ethnological grounds. The greatest absurdity of all is the supposition that the people on the North and South sides of the Scottish border, from the Humber to the Forth, are nationally distinct — in any other than an artificial, political sense. I hope you will be able to come to the " X " — Athenaeum, July 30th. — Ever yours very faithfully, T. H. Huxley. Mr. Isaac Taylor writes : Savile Club, 107 Piccadilly, W., March 26th, 1887. Dear Sir — I have been greatly interested in the discussion in the Times on the Races of Britain, in which you have done me the honour to quote some things I have written. If you have any thought of putting your letters into more permanent form — a magazine article, for instance — I should be glad to have an opportunity of correcting and supplementing my old work of twenty years ago. E.g. I now think it can be proved that the Angles were nearer in race to the Danes than to the Saxons. That there were three, if not four Jutish settlements. That in Yorkshire, Angles and Danes occupied alternate townships — interspersed, but not fused. E.g. in my own parish, and in several neighbouring parishes there are two townships — one Angle and other Danish. The Landnamabok affords curious evidence of the mixture of Gaels and Norsemen who colonized Iceland from Ireland. The Manx runic inscriptions afford curious evidence of the mixture of Scandinavians and Celts in the Isle of Man. Dr. Beddoe's recent book you know, but his facts and tables remain to be interpreted, and will, I think, supply you with a strong argument from the " Pictish " side. The king of Scots with his handful of Gaels ruling over Pictland was like the Scandinavian Russ ruling over Slavs at Kiev or Novgorod. — Believe me, yours faithfully, Isaac Taylor. The City of London Liberal Association was partly Unionist and partly consisted of Home 260 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. Rulers. The leaders of both sections determined to remain united for the present. Each of the Metropolitan Liberal Associations sent representatives to the Central Radical " Caucus." The City Association nominated Sir John as one of their delegates, and after some hesitation he consented to serve, thinking that he would thus maintain the right of Liberal Unionists to regard themselves as Liberals, and in the fond hope that some day a reunion of the old party might be possible. This position he held for some years, but being the only Unionist on the " Caucus " he thought it better not to attend the meetings. On May 20 he started with Lady Lubbock and their two daughters for a short holiday in Switzerland, and stayed at Weggis on the Lake of Lucerne. On June 7 they went to see the landslip at Spiringen. " It was a wonderful sight, the mountain side was still crumbling, and every now and then great masses came crash- ing and roaring down, every now and then leaping high in the air and throwing up great clouds of dust." He remarks that it helped to enable him to realise, however faintly, what the greater landslips at Goldau, and still more at Waldhaus Flims, must have been like. The following is a charmingly expressed in- vitation from Mr. Ruskin : Brantwood, 14 June '87. Dear Sir John — And will you really come ? It's so wonderful to think that you can forgive me all the ill-tempered things I have said about insects and evolu- tion and — everything nearly that you've been most xxi « NATIONALITIES " & POLITICS 261 interested in — and will see the Lake Country first from my terrace, where, however, Darwin has walked also. And it is a terrace — a mere nook of turf above a nest of garden — but commanding such a piece of lake and hill as can only be seen in England. I shall be here all the year, and whenever you can prevail on Lady Lubbock to seclude herself from the world — (there is not a house south of us on either side the lake for four miles) — and on Miss Lubbock to take up her quarrel where we broke off — irreconcilable — you will find Brantwood gate wide on its furthest hinges to you. You will have to put up with cottage fare — and perhaps — with a couple of days' rain. I have only a country cook — and when it rains here, it does not know how to stop. For the rest, if you come when the roses are yet in bloom and the heather in the bud, you will not be disappointed in Wordsworth's land. — Ever affection- ately yours, John Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin had made some whimsically ferocious, or ferociously whimsical, attacks on Sir John's list of best hundred books. Commenc- ing one of two articles in the Pall Mall Gazette, he writes : " Putting my pen lightly through the needless, and blottesquely through the rubbish and poison of Sir John's list, I leave enough for a life's liberal reading, and choice for any true worker's loyal reading ..." and so forth. Mr. Ruskin was keenly antagonistic, moreover, to the scientific views of the school to which Sir John belonged. " I've been made so miserable," he writes to Miss Susan Beever, from C.C.C. Oxford in 1875, " by a paper of J. Lubbock's on Flowers and Insects, that I must come and whine to you. He says, and really as if he knew it, that insects, chiefly bees, entirely originate flowers ; that all scent, colour, pretty form, is owing to bees ; that flowers which insects 262 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. don't take care of have no scent, colour, nor honey. It seems to me that it is likelier that the flowers which have no scent, colour, nor honey, don't get any attention from the bees. But the man really knows so much about it, and has tried so many pretty experiments, that he makes me miserable." Ruskin's whole attitude towards the men of the Darwinian school might be described as that of a man who said that " all truth is beauty," opposed to men who said that "all beauty is truth." He would define truth in terms of beauty ; they, beauty in terms of truth. But beneath their differences there was a warmth of personal affection between him and Sir John. The gentleness of each must appeal to the other, and again, despite their differences, they had a mutual appreciation. Sir John speaks delightedly of Ruskin's description of the grape hyacinth as " a cluster of grapes and a hive of honey distilled and compressed together into one small boss of celled and beaded blue." Elsewhere Sir John writes of Mr. Ruskin : " He was a man of singular charm." Nevertheless, for all the warmth of the in- vitation, much to the credit both of proposed host and guest, who had known how to differ from each other acutely, without rancour, I do not think that Sir John found time to accept it. His days, indeed, are fully accounted for. For their autumn holiday they took Bam- brough Castle, and were fortunate in having Mr. Clark, the great authority on English Castles, as a guest. He made Bambrough his headquarters xxi "NATIONALITIES" & POLITICS 263 for a fortnight, during which time they paid visits to the Duke of Northumberland at Alnwick, and to Lord Tankerville at Chillingham, besides making excursions to Warkworth, Dunstan- borough, and some of the other border castles. At Chillingham Sir John records that he " was fortunate enough to have a very good view of the wild cattle." He lost an old friend this year, as already noticed, in one of his aged queen ants, which died towards the end of July. " She has been with me," he writes, " ever since December 24, 1874. She hid herself in a corner, as they usually do when about to die, but the other ants brought her out and put her in her usual place among them as if they could not realise that she was dead." In September Mr. Craig Sellar had written to him, at the request of Lord Hartington, asking him for suggestions as to a constructive policy for the Liberal Unionists to lay before the country. Sir John replied as follows : High Elms, Beckenham, Kent, 13 Oct. 1887. My dear Craig Sellar — I have received your letter, and send you, as requested, my views, for Lord Harting- ton's consideration. It seems to me that the economic condition of Ireland during the present century has scarcely received sufficient consideration, and I enclose a copy of my letter to the Chairman of my Committee, in which I have referred to this more in detail. You will find the passages marked. In no country where the population had fallen from 8,000,000 to 5,000,000 in 40 years could the Government be popular. If the present discontent had no such explanation, I 264 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. confess I should feel much less hopeful ; but now that the population is more in relation to the resources of the Country, I hope the people may be more comfortable and consequently more contented ; though of course, this will require a long time. In standing out for " one Parliament " we occupy tangible ground, and I should be sorry to agree to any legislative assembly in Dublin, because in the first place, I believe that such a concession would greatly weaken our position in Britain ; and secondly, so far from removing difficulties, it would only give the Parnellites a leverage for further demands. Separation seems to me a lesser evil than Home Rule. I do not see that we are called on to frame any new constitution. It is clearly no use to suggest half measures which would not satisfy Parnell. It is, I think, for them to tell us what they want, and then we can consider it. If they were to have a separate legislative body, and yet sit in the Imperial Parliament, it seems to me clear that we must also have a separate Legislative Body for Britain, for we could not allow them, in such a case, to interfere with our special affairs. But in that case, I take it, we must also have a Supreme Court to determine, as the highest authority, what were, under the new constitution, to be the powers of the separate Legislatures and of the Imperial Parlia- ment. The Home Rulers do not seem to recognise this, and yet to it they will inevitably be driven. Trevelyan says that the old Bills are dead, and that concessions have been made which ought to remove our difficulties. For my part, I have no idea what the present policy of the Gladstonians is. We should, I think, try to elicit what they now propose, and we can then consider it ; but it is no part, I think, of our duty to construct any new con- stitution. I am sorry the Government have proclaimed the League. I think it would have been better to punish boy- cotting and petty persecution under the Crimes Act, and I would levy fines on newspapers. In the next session, I think we should suspend xxi " NATIONALITIES " & POLITICS 265 members, whether English or Irish, who interfere with the decency of debate. I hope I have not written at too great length, and please remember that I am writing at all because you ask me to do so. Probably a few minutes' conversation might make my views clearer. I will only add that while these are my opinions as at present advised, I recognise the difficulty of the situation, and Lord Hartington is far better able to judge what is wisest for us to do under existing circum- stances. A. Craig Sellar, Esq., M.P. In the same month he and Lady Lubbock were at Eaton, the Duke of Westminster's, for a lecture which he gave at Chester. Certainly, in his own estimation, in spite of his various work and studies, the year was principally notable for the extraordinary appreciation shown by the public of his Pleasures of Life. CHAPTER XXII INSTITUTION OF THE LONDON COUNTY council (1888) (Age 54) In 1888 Sir John took 39 Berkeley Square on a lease for five years. On February 7 he attended a meeting at the Memorial Hall in support of Early Closing. Parliament opened on February 9, and he at once introduced the Early Closing Bill, a Bill on behalf of the Collecting Friendly Societies, and also a Bill to amend the law relating to factories. The Early Closing Bill provided for the general closing of shops, with some exceptions, at 8 p.m., but he intimated his willingness in Committee to accept some extension for London if thought desirable. The principal London doctors and clergy of all denominations, including the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London and Cardinal Manning, petitioned in favour of the Bill, which, nevertheless, was thrown out on Second Reading (May 2) by a large majority. This convinced him that it was impossible to have one fixed time, and that each locality must be left to decide for itself. 266 oh. xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 267 He was re-elected Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, and on March 7 was elected President of the London Chamber of Commerce. He went down to High Elms, with Lady Lubbock and the children, on May 11, until the end of the month, and there is a note in his diary of the 29th : " We have had a peaceful time here. I have given myself a good rest, reading and doing my proofs of The Senses and Intelligence of Animals" Another man might have written, instead of " a good rest, reading, etc.," " been hard at work, reading." But Sir John's idea of a " rest " was ever a change of toil. On June 10 the eldest son, Harold, of his second marriage, was born. They took a house at Lyme Regis for the so-called autumn holiday, where he was working mainly at a second part of The Pleasures of Life. During September he went to Bath for the British Association meeting, and stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Dunn at the College. He read a paper on the habits of the Solitary Bees and Wasps. One day was devoted to an excursion to Stanton Drew. From Lyme Regis they went for a short visit to the Harcourts at Malwood, in the New Forest. Mr. John (now Lord) Morley was of the party. On September 26 Sir John notes in his diary : " Had a long and interesting talk with Harcourt about Home Rule. He would give Ireland, and, if desired, Scotland, power of managing their own special affairs, and yet thinks we should allow Scotch and Irish members to vote on ours. This, it seems to me, England would never assent to. At the same time he considers that the 268 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. Imperial Parliament must retain the finance, and that a supreme court would be necessary. He thinks that if there was a General Election now they would carry every seat in Scotland, and several in the North and the Eastern counties. I do not believe this. He says Parnell would be thankful to get anything ! He did not give me the impression, however, of being very sanguine." The following day they were back at High Elms, and on October 2 he writes : " Just as we had settled ourselves in the drawing-room after dinner, C came in and announced, ' Your ladyship's room is on fire,' as coolly as if he had been announcing dinner. Fortunately no great harm was done." There was a late autumn session this year in November, and he spoke on the Education Estimates and on various Bills. The political situation was, of course, very difficult. On November 27 he notes : " Lunched (or break- fasted ?) with the Courtneys at eleven. John Morley and Miss Potter there, the former very frank about Ireland. He has not given up his Land Bill, and, I thought, admitted that Home Rule with the Irish members at Westminster was quite indefensible." Two days later he was entertained by the London shopkeepers at a dinner at Willis' Rooms, and was enthusiastically received by his hosts. He had suffered yet another loss in the autumn of the year by the death of his sole surviving old queen ant, at the venerable age of fifteen years. The death of her royal companion, at the age of fourteen, has already been recorded. It is be- LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 269 lieved that these are the oldest known insects. All this year the editions of the first series of The Pleasures of Life continued to be brought out almost as fast as the publishers could produce them, and his other books were constantly being reissued and translated into fresh languages and dialects. The following letter from Sir John's lifelong friend, the great botanist, Dr. Hooker, is an appreciation of The Senses of Animals : The Camp, Sunningdale, Oct. 25th, 1888. My dear Lubbock — I had hoped to have finished The Senses of Animals before I wrote to thank you for your thoughtful present. I am quite fascinated by it, and thank you most heartily for what is to me a most valuable repertory of facts previously quite unknown to me, and put together in the most instructive way. It was a happy thought of yours to take up the subject, and a happier con- summation to have dealt with it so lucidly. I rejoice in my previous ignorance, in that it has brought me face to face with so much of fascinating interest. — Yours affectionately, J. D. Hooker. The event of greatest importance, however, during this year, in which Sir John took active part, is probably that referred to in his diary of December 13 : " The Liberals and Conservatives have both asked me to stand for the London County Council, and I have accepted. I should not have done so if the request had not been practically unanimous, the leaders of all parties having signed it." It is possible, even so, that had Sir John foreseen all the additional labour that it was to bring into his already crowded life, he might have declined, but had he done so it is certain that the 270 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. infant institution would have lacked its principal and most valuable preceptor in teaching it the right performance of its at first little understood functions. Fortunately, it is no part of my task as Lord Avebury's biographer to relate the genesis of the London County Council out of the Metropolitan Board of Works. Mr. Justin M'Carthy, in his admirable History of our own Times, points out how especially fortunate the new body was in the varied ability and high eminence of its first members. " The first Chairman," he writes, " whom the County Council appointed, was no less a man than Lord Rosebery, the second Chairman was Sir John Lubbock, one of the most able and highly-cultured men in the House of Commons." And again, after a list given to show the many talents represented in the Council, he writes : "Sir John Lubbock could speak for the interests of the bankers, and also for the ideas of thinking men." We may, no doubt, acquit the author of any malice or intention in the rather charming irony which puts the " thinking men " into this acute antithesis with the bankers. Four seats on the County Council were allotted to the City of London, and for these there were six candidates. The result was declared, on January 18, as follows : Lubbock 8976, Rosebery 8032, Cohen 3925, Clarke 3622, Shaw 2752, Johnson 729. The first four therefore were elected, Sir John heading the poll. The first meeting of the newly-formed body took place on the last day of the month, when Sir John was voted into the chair pro tern. He notes : "I had Xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 271 been rather anxious about the meeting. How- ever, it went off very well ; the members were very well behaved." The Progressives had re- turned eighteen out of nineteen candidates that they had put forward. On February 1 the meeting, adjourned from the previous day, was resumed. On the 11th the second formal meeting of the Council was held, at which Lord Rosebery was elected Chairman for the year, with Sir John as Vice, and Mr. Frith as Deputy. The Times said with regard to the original voting : By far the most interesting and important of the returns published yesterday of the elections to the London County Council is that for the City of London. Alike in its choice of representatives and in the number of votes recorded for them the City has established its claim to be regarded as the leading constituency of the new County. Sir John Lubbock heads the poll with 8976 votes and Lord Rosebery follows with 8032, the two other successful candidates, Mr. Benjamin Cohen and Mr. Henry Clarke, being several thousand votes behind. This is altogether as it should be. Sir John Lubbock has every claim to be chosen as the first representative of the City of London on such a body as the County Council. As Lord Rosebery said in his graceful speech at the declaration of the poll, the electors have rightly placed at the head of the poll one who not merely possesses personal and hereditary connexions with the City of London, but is also a man of great talent and high public spirit. They have done equally well in placing Lord Rosebery second on the list.1 The calls which the County Council made upon him, for some while during which its procedure was being determined, seem to have been in- i Times, January 19, 1889. 272 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK «. cessant. On February 21 he notes, " Opening of Parliament. First I had (as almost every day now) a County Council Committee, then I went to the opening of Parliament and brought in two Bills, one enabling local authorities to establish a weekly half-holiday for shops, and the other my Factory Acts Bill." In May he further introduced a Bill to amend the Public Libraries Act. On March 2 he notes again : " Have had a heavy week of County Council Committees," and yet again on the 12th of the month, " County Council ... it is really taking an immense amount of my time." These observations on the part of a man to whom work was so welcome, show how heavy the demands must have been, especially when he was attending the meetings from High Elms. It was not till March 5 that they came up to Berkeley Square. He brought out his second series of The Pleasures of Life in May. The following typical little note is an acknowledgment from Cardinal Manning : Archbishop's House, Westminster, S.W., May 18th, 1889. Dear Sir John Lubbock — I thank you much for your book. The first part I read with much pleasure, and I am sure that I shall enjoy the second. Your witness against Dismalism, the first-born of Pessimism, is very valuable. Life is full of pleasure to all who honour it. I send you a dry return for your refreshing fruit. Let me know when your Committee meets. — Believe me, always, very truly yours, Henry E., Card. -Archbishop. The very day after the publication of the second series of The Pleasures of Life, in the xxn LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 273 spring of this year, the publishers had written to him saying that they must print another edition of two thousand, as the first was already sold out ! There was only one paper, as he observes, that was sarcastic at all in its criticism, and, he adds, " the passage on which they are most severe is not mine at all, but a quotation from Plato ! " On his birthday, April 30, the Liberal members of the County Council sent him a round robin, wishing him many happy returns. In the beginning of June he and Lady Lubbock went off, as usual, for one of those Swiss tours which enabled him later to write the Scenery of Switzerland. They went over the Ghemmi to Visp, Zermatt, Lausanne, Geneva, Macon, Paris, and home to High Elms on the 22nd. A week afterwards he writes : " Dr. Nansen, the Greenland explorer, came to breakfast. We had also Aberdare, Herschell, Flower, F. Galton, Lyell, Roscoe, Sir H. Maxwell, and Bates." I quote this entry because it indicates how Sir John kept up, almost to a later date than any one else, the breakfast-party habit. It is a form of hospitality on which opinions will vary much, perhaps somewhat with the eupepsia or the reverse of the breakfasters. To Sir John, who regarded himself as guilty of something rather like slothful indulgence if he did not begin the day as early in the morning as half- past six, the half-past nine breakfast came at an hour at which he was very ready both for refreshment and for conversation. There were others of a different habit of life who did not find their VOL. I T 274 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OT. conversational energies at their best on these occasions. I know there is somewhere, though I cannot lay hands on it, an amusing letter from Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in answer to an invita- tion from Sir John to breakfast, in which he says that he regards that meal as an anachronism, that at an early hour in the morning, such as 2 or 3 a.m., he would be delighted to meet and converse with Sir John and his other guests, but that such an hour as that proposed for breakfast he considers ought to be consecrated, by civilised humanity, to sleep. It was a curious friendship that existed between men so different as Sir John and Mr. Chamberlain, but it was founded on a strong mutual esteem. In Sir John Lubbock's opinion, the provisions of the " Declaration of Paris " did not go far enough, and thinking that it would be desirable to assimilate the law relating to property at sea during times of war to that on land, and so make ships free of capture and seizure, he brought the question up before the Council of the London Chamber of Commerce. The Council agreed with his view and passed a unanimous resolution in that sense, asking him to convey it to the Prime Minister (Lord Salisbury) and engage his support. He saw Lord Salisbury, who was quite of the same opinion, but was afraid that France would not concur, and asked him to consult Lord Lytton, then our Ambassador at Paris. This he did, and Lord Lytton wrote in reply as follows : xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 275 Paris, July 12th, 1889. My dear Sir John — I must apologise for having left your letter of the 8th three days unanswered ; but the subject of it was too important for hasty reply. Personally, I have always thought that the Declara- tion of Paris went either too far, or not far enough ; and that, having precluded ourselves from issuing letters of Marque, or seizing enemies' goods under neutral flags, we made an immense mistake in opposing the Exemption of private ships from capture. I believe that our accept- ance of this principle at the time would have secured the adhesion of America and Spain to the Declaration of 1856. But, as matters now stand, the difficulty of obtaining its adoption by the other Maritime Powers of Europe (especially if such a proposal were to emanate from us) lies in the obviousness as well as the magnitude of the advantage we should derive from it. We have the largest navy and the largest carrying trade : and I fear that no European Power which approaches this question from the point of view of a possible belligerent would now be disposed to centuple the strength of our large navy by relieving it from the necessity of protecting our large carrying trade. Without actually making the proposal, I cannot ascertain for certain how it would be received by the present French Government. But I have the strongest impression, that at the present moment, it would have no chance of a favourable reception. I am collecting, and hope to be able to send you shortly, the opinions of French Jurisconsults on the expediency of treating private property at sea like private property on land in time of war. These opinions, if in the main favourable, might perhaps be usefully cited in any international discussion of the question in the event of a propitious occasion for raising such a discussion. But they would have no influence over the French Government in its practical consideration of the question from a belligerent point of view : and that is the point of view which would be of paramount importance to any French Government at the present moment. In the event of War between France and England, or between France and any other country looking to the naval support of England, it would undoubtedly be the object of France to tie up our navy as much as possible, 276 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. and to destroy or divert our carrying trade. The exemption of our carrying trade from capture by French Cruizers would render this object unattainable. In any such proposal directly emanating from us, the French would at once smell a rat ; and they would meet it with the stock arguments, that private property stands by sea and land in totally different relations to the War Power : that trading or passenger ships may, in time of war, be easily converted into transport ships, or even into war ships for the repair of a naval disaster ; and that therefore such ships cannot be exempted from the risk of capture without thereby augmenting an enemy's naval resources in exact proportion to the magnitude and importance of his mercantile marine. And, moreover, that an enemy's mercantile marine being the natural recruiting ground of her navy, its liability to destruction is a no less natural condition of belli- gerency. The French are now living in constant apprehension of a war with Germany which might possibly assume European proportions, and which would in any case be to France a life and death struggle. The action or inaction of the Naval power of England is one of the contingencies which they are bound to take into account in their preparations for such a struggle. They have spent millions on the augmentation of their land forces, and are beginning to think more about their navy. No French Cabinet could survive a popular impression that it had taken any step calculated to weaken the offensive power of the country, by land or sea, in the event of war ; and the French carrying trade is insignificant as compared to ours. The main object of every French Cabinet is to avoid exposing itself to Parliamentary attack — and the present French Cabinet is on the eve of a general Election, the results of which may possibly change the whole constitution of the State. It would be idle to attempt any serious negociation with a weak and unpopular Government in this position. Whatever the present French Cabinet might agree to would most probably be rejected and cancelled by the next Parlia- ment ; whilst on the other hand, an unfavourable declaration of opinion by the present Cabinet might prejudice the chance of raising the question under more promising conditions hereafter. xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 277 For all these reasons I would in any case advise the postponement of overtures here till we have seen what the French Elections bring forth. But even from a Government less frightened than the present ... I fear we should have but a very poor chance of obtaining the participation of France — in the present state of Europe, to the proposed extension of the Declaration of Paris. In 1856 France and England were allies, and the foreign policy of France was directed by a strong personal ruler. In this Country no parliamentary government could have carried the Cobden Treaty. It is most reluctantly that I come to these conclusions. For the extension of the Declaration of Paris in the sense you advocate would now be of incalculable benefit to us, and I should esteem myself most fortunate if I could contribute to the attainment of that object. If I may venture a suggestion as to the modus operandi, I would recommend an endeavour to get the question raised by some minor Power (Belgium or another) in a general conference on some cognate matter. It would, of course, in that case be advisable to have secured beforehand by confidential negociation the concurrence of a majority of other States. I don't see how America could refuse to give up Privateering if the other Maritime Powers agreed to exempt private ships from capture ; although I apprehend that it would be impossible to waive the right of search and seizure for contraband, and the question of what constitutes contraband in different circumstances would always remain a very disputable one. I don't know whether advantage could be taken of the Brussels Conference on the S.T. to make some attempt in this direction. But if the object is kept in view, other opportunities may occur. If the proposal emanated from some minor Maritime Power it would provoke less opposition than if coming directly from us. And, put forward by such a Power on purely humanitarian grounds, it would appeal more plausibly to the French Democracy. It is just possible that rather than figure as the only Power irreconcilably opposed to so great a mitigation of the reform of Maritime War, France would in that case agree to it. I can't say, however, that I think the prospect promising. All the considerations which render it desirable for us to obtain, if possible, such a recognised alteration in the conditions 278 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. of Maritime war while Europe is still at peace, would probably indispose France and Russia towards any effort on our part to bring it about. — Yours, my dear Sir John, very faithfully, Lytton. He sent the letter to Lord Salisbury, who replies : My dear Sir John — Many thanks for letting me see the enclosed, it is a very interesting and a very convincing letter. I am afraid that in proportion as wars tend, as they are doing now, to be wars for existence, the laws of war will be liable to change in a retrograde sense. The very acuteness with which each belligerent feels the enormity of the stake he has laid down, will dissuade him from sacrificing any sensible advantage in deference to con- siderations of a less pressing character. — Believe me, yours very truly, Salisbury. Early in August a strike broke out in the Docks, and he was urged, by several interests involved, to try to effect a settlement. In various social matters he had co-operated with Cardinal Manning, and knowing the Cardinal's great influence with the men, he wrote to him as follows : — 15 Lombard Street, E.C., 8th August 1889. Private. My dear Cardinal Manning — As I understand, the contention of the Strikers is that though the rate of 5d. (per hour) would give higher rates than unskilled, or even agricultural labourers obtain elsewhere, still that practically the men do not get it because the employment is so irregular. Do you think that could be met by the Dock Com- panies forming a list of labourers who should be paid 5d. with a guaranteed minimum per week ? If you were disposed to suggest this to Mr. Burns and Mr. Champion, I would, if you liked, go with you, and if they agreed would do my best to induce the Docks to assent. — I am, yours sincerely, John Lubbock. xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 279 Mr. Sydney Buxton who, as Member for Poplar, was naturally much interested in the matter, was away for his holiday, but his con- stituents telegraphed to him to return. The following letter from Mrs. Buxton indicates the trouble he and Mrs. Buxton had in their return journey : Westport, 23rd August 1889. Dearest Father. . . . Sydney and I have been having a very nice time here ; but now to our very great disgust, we have been telegraphed for home to London. There are some strikes going on in the East End, and Sydney has a good deal of influence with the men, as he has helped in arbitrations before, so when they tele- graphed begging him to go back, he thought we ought. I think he is quite right, but it is a great nuisance. I felt inclined to stamp and swear when the telegram came. We have to be back on Saturday morning, for the great meeting in the afternoon — and to do it, we had yesterday to drive 43 miles, with one broken-kneed horse all the way ! It certainly was what our carman called a " long, slow, thravel " : but there wasn't any other animal to be had. We were staying at a most delicious place called Renvyle, on the Galway coast. It is a very pretty quaint old house, slated all over outside, and panelled with oak inside, standing in the midst of lovely scenery, and with very good shooting — of a rough sort — all round. It belongs to a Mrs. Blake, a distressed Irish landlady, who, not being able to get her rents, very pluckily turned her house into an hotel, and so makes her living. It is altogether most comfortable, though Mrs. Blake, herself, might become a nuisance in time. Yester- day she discovered from Syd's telegram that he was an M.P., so all the while we were packing, she kept dashing into our room with new arguments about the Agitation — nourishing the bill she was making out for us in one hand, and a report of her evidence before the Parnell Com- mission in the other. But she was very hospitable and nice to us, in spite of our telling her we were Parnellites. I always say I am a Parnellite in this country, as I don't choose to let Sydney fight the landlord class all by 280 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. himself : and indeed I am a great admirer of Mr. Parnell's, if that constitutes a Parnellite. I am afraid we shan't be able to come to H.E. in October, as we shall be fixtures at Cromer from the middle of September till near the session : but if we might come in January, it would be very nice. We are looking forward much to seeing you all in September. — With best love, your loving daughter, Con. Buxton. Early in September a meeting was called at the Chamber of Commerce to consider the subject, at the instance mainly of Sir J. Whittaker Ellis, who made a special appeal to Sir John to attend it. Sir Whittaker pointed out that the traders were getting a little impatient at the enforced stoppage of business, and that it would be most useful if Sir John would come and exercise his influence with them. Considering the endurance shown by the strikers, it was most important to main- tain a patient bearing, but, on the other hand, it could not be denied that it would be worse than foolish not to make some move to put an end to the present disastrous state of things. Sir John replied to the appeal that he would be at the Bank in Lombard Street, and would be happy to come to the meeting on a summons being conveyed to him. The traders met at twrelve, and sent a message asking him to come over. He found they had before them a pro- posal to appoint a deputation to wait on the Dock Directors and to point out — 1. That the Strike was causing great inconvenience. 2. To urge them to put on sufficient hands and clear the ships. 3. That if they were prevented from doing so by violence they should apply to Government for a force to prevent interference on the part of the Strikers. xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 281 The first two resolutions were passed, and they were discussing the third, to which there was a good deal of opposition, when Sir Whit- taker Ellis, who was in the chair, asked Sir John to express his view on the subject. He replied that he had come prepared rather to listen than to speak, that probably they knew more than he did, but that he thought the last proposal was a somewhat desperate remedy, and he could not but hope that it would be dropped. On the other hand, if they went to the Docks with the first two suggestions, the Directors would cer- tainly say, as regards the first, that they were aware of and deeply regretted the inconvenience ; and as regards the second, that if Mr. Burns' pickets were removed they would have plenty of labour in five minutes. He thought, therefore, that this course would do no good, and indeed doubted whether the moment was one in which they could take action with advantage. He did not like to suggest to them to retrace their steps, but he thought that the best course would be to keep this committee together, to be ready to act, and to ask the Lord Mayor to interview the Dock Directors and the leaders of the strike, and see whether some satisfactory solution could be arrived at in that way. This suggestion met with general approval, and was unanimously adopted. The following account of the proceedings is from notes left in Sir John's own hand. After considerable discussion the meeting passed a unanimous resolution requesting the Lord Mayor, the Governor of the Bank of England, 282 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. and Sir John Lubbock to confer with the Dock Directors and the men, and attempt if possible to arrange a settlement of the dispute. Accordingly, he wrote to the Lord Mayor and the Governor of the Bank asking when they could meet. Next morning he received from the Lord Mayor a note asking him to come to the Mansion House, which he did at once. Cardinal Manning, the Bishop of London (Dr. Temple), and Mr. Buxton were there. The contention of the men was, that though the nominal rate of wages might be sufficient, yet, as a matter of fact they lost half their time standing outside the Dock gates, and were not actually in receipt of remuneration for more than three days in the week. Cardinal Manning and Mr. Buxton contended, therefore, that the demand for an increase, under these circumstances, was reasonable. Sir John, however, urged that a mere increase of wages would not meet the evil. It was not a question of wages, but of organisation. A mere increase would attract more hands, who could then be employed for a still less proportion of their time, so that though the expense to the Dock Companies would be greater, the earnings of the men might be no more than at present, because they would spend even more time waiting idle at the gates. He proposed, therefore, that in the first in- stance they should confer with the Dock Directors. This was rejected, but the Bishop of London was in favour of submitting Sir John's suggestion to the men. Eventually it was agreed that the xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 283 leaders of the men should be invited to the Mansion House, and that the Committee should adjourn till they came. Sir John thereupon returned to the Bank and heard no more till a quarter to four, when the Lord Mayor came in hurriedly and begged him to go with him to the Dock House. Sir John was surprised, and said that they had not yet seen the men. It appeared, however, that the Lord Mayor, Mr. Buxton, and Cardinal Manning had seen them, without summoning either him or the Bishop. They claimed to have laid Sir John's suggestion, which they themselves did not favour, impartially before the men, by whom it had been declined. That being so, the Lord Mayor, Cardinal Manning, and Mr. Buxton deter- mined to go to the Docks and urge the Directors to concede the demands of the men at once. Sir John said that under the terms of their resolution in the morning he considered that he ought to have had the opportunity of conferring with the men and of laying his views before them ; that the traders in their meeting of the day before very wisely suggested that they should confer with the Dock Directors before coming to any decision, and, moreover, that they had not heard the views of the Governor of the Bank. He told the Lord Mayor that he thought they were bound to hear the Dock Directors before coming to any decision. The Lord Mayor, however, intimated that he, Cardinal Manning, and Mr. Buxton had made up their minds. 284 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. Under these circumstances Sir John protested, and declined to accompany the Lord Mayor. The Dock Directors were more than a little indignant, thinking that the Lord Mayor should have heard both sides, and positively refused the proposal. Next week the Lord Mayor again begged Sir John to attend a meeting at the Mansion House. The leaders of the men attended, and eventually a compromise was arrived at, and Cardinal Manning agreed, notwithstanding his great age, to go to Poplar and lay the proposition before the men. The following is Mr. Buxton's account of the Cardinal's interview with the representatives of the men : The Mansion House, London, E.C., Sept. 11/89. Dear Sir John — I write this at the request of Cardinal Manning — and I have read it over to him. Yesterday evening, as arranged, he and I met the whole of the Strike Committee (with few exceptions) at Poplar. After a very prolonged and animated discussion, and very great opposition at first on the part of many of the men present, probably of the large majority, the enclosed resolution was ultimately passed — practically unanim- ously— and signed by the Executive Committee. In yours and the Lord Mayor's inevitable absence from town, Cardinal Manning and myself saw Mr. Norwood privately this afternoon, and laid the resolution before him. He will officially lay it before his Board at 2 o'clock to-morrow — until which time the matter is absolutely private. The proposition is practically that which we urged on the men on Monday, and which it was understood you would be prepared, in conjunction with the Lord Mayor, to press on the Board, if the men would accept it in writing — and this they have now done. xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 285 " That this meeting empower Cardinal Manning to inform the Dock Directors that the men are willing to meet them half-way in the matter of the time at which the payment of 6d. and 8d. is to begin and to accept Monday 4th November as the date." Cardinal Manning will see the Directors to-morrow, when the proposition will be discussed ; and he is very anxious indeed that, if you could possibly see your way to it, you should, in order to strengthen his hands, send him a telegram to-morrow (Thursday) before 2 o'clock (addressed perhaps to the Mansion House) to the effect that you trust the proposition will be accepted by the Directors. From our interview with Mr. Norwood, we feel pretty confident that he will urge on his Board the acceptance of the proposition ; and your assent would greatly strengthen his hands also. The Directors will simply say Aye or No to the pro- position ; for we have informed Mr. Norwood, of that which we feel absolutely certain, that, on the part of the men, November 4th is the irreducible minimum — and Mr. Norwood thought himself that this Board would not haggle over intermediate dates. This is thus a real chance of ending the Strike, which if it passes away cannot we fear recur. We are writing in a similar way to the Lord Mayor, who is also unavoidably out of town till Friday — and we hope he will also telegraph approval. — Yours affection- ately, S. Buxton. While he thought that the Dock Directors had been very uncourteously treated, and the whole matter not at all well managed, he con- sidered, on the whole, that the Company would do wisely to accept the compromise, and tele- graphed in this sense. The Dock Directors agreed, and the strike ended, but the Company took steps to organise the engagement of the men in the manner indicated in his letter to Cardinal Manning. The Directors, he subsequently heard, had in 286 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. fact been considering such a system at the moment when the strike broke out. With Lady Lubbock he attended the British Association meeting at Newcastle, staying at Jesmond with Mr. and Mrs. Robin Hoare. He read two papers — one explaining the differences of the forms of the leaves in the two English species of Viburnum (guelder rose), the other on the peculiar form of the oak leaf, quite unlike that of any of our other trees. One of the objections urged against his Early Closing Bill was that it might be inconvenient to working-men. He sent a copy therefore to Mr. H. Broadhurst, M.P., Secretary to the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and asked him to be so good as to ascertain the views of the Trades Unions. Mr. Broadhurst replied that " his Committee had expressed approval of a general effort being made to shorten the hours of shop assistants, and that they would be glad to offer Sir John such assist- ance as they could give." Far from considering that working-men would be put to any incon- venience, the Congress, when appealed to, agreed to support the measure. On October 30 he took the chair at the London Chamber of Commerce dinner to Lord Dufferin. November 8 he was at Stockport opening the new Technical School, and on November 14 gave away the Heriot-Watt College prizes at Edinburgh. A week later he and Lady Lubbock started on a hurried visit to Rome, where, under the guid- ance especially of Professor Lanciani and Pro- fessor Pigorini, they saw all the most interesting xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 287 discoveries and excavations which had been made since Sir John's last visit. He records that " I cannot hear of a single bronze sword " (though there were many bronze ornaments) " having ever been found in Rome. Stone implements are also very rare, indeed almost entirely absent." They returned home on December 9, " after a bad passage." On December 12 he received a message from the Lord Mayor asking him to come to the Mansion House to aid in settlement of a dispute which had arisen between the Gas Companies and their workmen. The matter was one of much difficulty, but in the end a satisfactory arrange- ment was arrived at. Cardinal Manning was present, with his invaluable experience and influence to aid the cause of peace. " Eventu- ally," writes Sir John, " we settled all the points amicably except one or two which both sides referred to the Lord Mayor, the Governor of the Bank, and me. The South Metropolitan Gas struggle only remained. Mr. Livesey was present and told me he had all the men he wanted. On the other hand, the Secretary of the Union stated positively that he would find it impossible to get another ton of coal." The termination of that long fight will perhaps be remembered — how the Company entirely beat the men, and then dictated to them generous terms which made the concern an object lesson in the way of a successful experiment in profit- sharing. The recurrence of those Labour disputes, prejudicial not only to masters and men, but to 288 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. the whole commerce of London, led to the forma- tion by the London Chamber of Commerce of the London Labour Conciliation and Arbitration Board, the success of which seems to have been mainly due to the energy and tact of Mr. G. B. Boulton. Twelve employers were nominated by the Chamber of Commerce — the different sections being arranged in twelve groups — and twelve were nominated by the London Trade Unions arranged in twelve similar groups, to which were added two nominated by the Lord Mayor and by the Chairman of the London County Council. Sir John was a member of the Board from the commencement and took much interest in the work. The advantage of this body over other Conciliation Boards is that the latter generally have, on opposite sides of the table, two dia- metrically opposed interests — employers and employed. In the London case, however, a dispute would directly affect two representatives only and the other twenty-four would be able to exercise a comparatively unprejudiced and in- dependent judgment. Sir John states that in his opinion the Board " worked well." An excellent criticism of The Senses of Animals, given by one of the reviews, indicates in a few words the secret of the popular success which it achieved immediately : In Sir J. Lubbock's new book on The Senses of Animals he sensibly adds to The Pleasures of Life by collecting information perfectly new to the unscientific majority of mankind. He enables us, not indeed to ascertain how animals " envisage " the world but to be certain that their world is extremely unlike ours. Take a beast xxii LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 289 which has eyes in its back, ears in its legs, and which sings through its sides. How different must be the phenomena that surround that animal from those which greet us in our pilgrimage. The second part of The Pleasures of Life ran through four editions during the year. The first passed through six more editions, and was translated into Russian, Swedish, and French, besides appearing as a " Tauchnitz." There was also a German translation of The Senses of Animals, a Spanish translation of The Origin of Civilisation, and a new edition of The Origin of Insects. At the end of the year he received this com- plimentary announcement from Lord Salisbury : Hatfield, 29 Dec. '89. My dear Sir John Lubbock — It is with extreme satisfaction that I am authorised to inform you that the Queen has been pleased to direct that you should become a Member of the Privy Council on the approaching New Year's day. It is with no ordinary pleasure that I find myself the instrument of making this communication to you. — Believe me, yours very truly, Salisbury. VOL. I U CHAPTER XXIII CHAIRMANSHIP OF LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL, (1890) (Age 56) Towards the end of the eighties there are fewer references in Sir John Lubbock's diary to the games of fives which he had been able to enjoy for many more years than such violent exercise as they demand is permitted to most men. Some years before this his brother Henry had removed from the High Elms kennels a pack of beagles which he had kept there for a long while. The brothers used to go out in the early morning before starting for business and have a run with them. Nevertheless, though the kennels of the little hounds were no longer there, the master occasion- ally brought them over, and Sir John several times records that they had a hare hunt. But in 1889 the beagle pack was given up and we hear neither of the hare-hunting nor of the fives any more. The game that began to assume the place of these more athletic exercises for Sir John was the less violent one of golf. Taking up the game when he did, it was not to be expected that he would become a great player, but a keen player he 290 ch. xxiii CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 291 certainly was ; and steady up to the point that he attained. He made a nine-hole course in the park at High Elms, and it used to astonish me, time after time, to see the accuracy with which practice had enabled him to gauge the strength required to run the ball up, as he did, from long distances, to the small putting greens, over the ground, left in its original state of rough pasture, of the park. I would attempt a pitch stroke, which had the air of being rather more scientific, but was generally a relative failure as regards the important point of bringing the ball to rest anywhere near the hole. Sir John would push the ball up, with a running stroke of the putter, estimating the final result of all the multitudinous bumps with an accuracy which made it look like an inspired fluke every time. A very good account, with an admirable general idea of Sir John's procedure in the study of his insects, is given by Sir Edwin Arnold in a lecture which he delivered in the early part of this year in Japan. " Take the example," he said, to his Japanese audience, " of one whose name you will know and honour, Sir John Lubbock. I have the privilege of his friendship, and have watched those daily researches of his by which he has thrown so much interesting light upon the habits of ants, bees and wasps, as well as on the structural marvels of the floral and the forest world. If you have read his delightful books and could afterwards see the simple arrangements which have produced them, those among you who are naturalists would be encouraged to attempt similar great and 292 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. illuminating things for us in your richly-gifted Japan. Wishing to find out the sense of colour, and to estimate the preference for different flowers displayed by bees, you see Sir John sitting with watch and pencil in his garden at High Elms. On the turf lie pieces of paper, all equal in size and smeared with an exactly equal amount of honey, but variously tinted. In the summer sunshine the bees come and go, attracted by the honey. Selecting their favourite hue — because they take the coloured paper for flowers — they alight in numbers upon one of the squares, leaving the others comparatively neglected, and thus in a few hours we have obtained an answer from the hive itself, as clear and businesslike as the popular vote which you will soon give for your new Imperial Parliament. " Sir John showed me, not long ago, the little apparatus where his ant cities were kept. Tier above tier in shallow boxes, isolated by water, and closed by a double lid of glass and wood, he feeds and studies there the various species of that wonderful insect. He drew back the wooden lid from one large ant city, which revealed to me through the glass its tiny people in their daily life. There, in the central cell, was the Queen, imposing, majestic, isolated ; courtier ants stood round, always respectfully facing her majesty ; and attendants brought the pupae, or ant babies, in procession before the sovereign. Slave ants, dark of hue, performed in gangs the hard work of the city for the lighter coloured kwazoku and shizoku of the community ; and small white wood-lice, quite blind, ran about the by-ways CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 293 carefully cleaning up all dirt and litter. You may think I am romancing, but far more wonder- ful facts reward such an observer as Sir John Lubbock. Individuals in an ant city number from half a million to a million, and, incredible as it may seem, they all know each other. Imagine anybody recognising every single face in Tokyo ; but these ants, whose brain is smaller than a pin's head, can surely do this ! All this, for which I personally answer, discloses a new sense in these minute creatures ; while experi- ments made with the light-rays lying beyond the red and violet, totally invisible to us, prove clearly that many small living things are quite as per- fectly aware of those hidden beams as the magnetic needle is sensitive to the polar current which we cannot feel. No doubt to the eye of the dragon fly, or of the Dytiscus beetle, altogether another world than ours is represented by the ordinary face of nature, near and far. These facts carry the thoughts of the educated European as far downwards into the lower regions of biology as the star photographs lift it upwards in the celestial regions. And everywhere alike he now sees at work the same grand principle of evolution." Later in the year Sir John had a short letter of much suggestive interest from Professor Was- mann, the great German entomologist, to whom he had sent a copy of The Senses of Animals. 9-5-90. Dear Sir — I have received yesterday your letter and the book and feel very much obliged for your kind- ness. Although I have studied already the German translation of your interesting book, I am nevertheless very glad to possess the original from yourself. 294 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. The details about Laura Bridgman and your experi- ments on " Van " have given me peculiar interest. They seem to prove that there exists some essential difference between the mental faculties of man and superior brutes ; the poor girl could get with one sense to a notable degree of human intellectuality, but " Van " could improve by the use of his five excellent senses only so far as to combine sensitive images, according to the combinations given by your own intelligence. This seems to me very remarkable. But I fear we do not agree about the definition of " instinct " and " intel- lect."— I am, yours very sincerely, E. Wasmann. Mr. Andrew Reid asked him to write an article (I believe for the Westminster Review) on the Home Rule question, but he did not feel able to treat of it in the manner which would meet Mr. Reid's views, and replied to him to that effect. Mr. Reid, however, would at first take no refusal and renewed his request, to which Sir John replied : High Elms, Farnborough, R.S.O., Kent. Dear Mr. Reid — I am afraid I could write nothing which you as a Home Ruler would care to insert. Political agitators have I believe inflicted a gigantic loss on Ireland, which I see has been recently estimated by Mr. Giffen at no less than £150,000,000. My objection to Home Rule is, however, in great measure from an English point of view. If Irish Members are to have a Parliament of their own and then to sit at Westminster, I agree with Sir G. Trevelyan that they will not only be " masters of their own parliament in Dublin, but they will be our masters at Westminster as well." One of the most important provisions in Mr. Glad- stone's Home Rule Bill was that Ireland should con- tribute a fixed sum to Imperial Expenditure. That being so, we should I think be mad to allow them to vote on Imperial policy, as they might involve us in an immense expenditure, the whole burden of which would fall on us. CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 295 If Irish members are to be left to manage Irish affairs, then surely we ought to be left to manage ours. But if there are to be separate Legislatures for Gt. Britain and for Ireland, as well as a supreme Parliament, — that would be not Home Rule, but Federalism. I have over and over again expressed my opinion that Federalism is not open to the same objections as Home Rule, though it presents of course great diffi- culties. But it is unnecessary to discuss them, as Federalism has not been proposed by any leading English Statesman. — I am, yours faithfully, John Lubbock. Presumably it is Mr. Reid, who, on the back of this letter, has made the following note : This letter is so well put together, cutting out very sharply the blocks of stone, that I do trust you will let me publish it. I can then publish Mr. Gladstone's communication as it is written to me, and your reply to that. Mr. Parnell may also join in the matter. I cannot very well publish copy of Mr. Gladstone's letter unless you consent to references to you which he makes, and which I must leave out. There can be no objection, if you wish, to your seeing his letter any more than there can be to Mr. G.'s seeing yours, for they are both on public matters. After the turn of the year we find Mr. Reid following up this correspondence with some further letters which have for their purpose to draw Sir John once more into the Gladstonian fold. He commences by congratulating Sir John on being a member of the Privy Council. He points out what a powerful assistance Sir John might bring to the Home Rule cause if he could be induced to reconsider his attitude towards it, and goes on to say that he would very much like to ask Mr. Parnell if he does now, or ever did, insist upon a fixed contribution. Mr. Gladstone, 296 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. Mr. Reid says, had informed him that he was perfectly ignorant of any wish or statement of Mr. Parnell's of the kind. He quotes Mr. Glad- stone's own statement, as follows : 2. I am not aware of a single rag or shred of evidence to sustain the statement that Mr. Parnell requires the pecuniary liability of Ireland for Imperial charges to be disposed of by a fixed sum, or that this question is dependent on the perfectly distinct question of retention at Westminster. 3. Mr. P.'s not bound to open his mind to me . . . yet were I to make an assertion on the matter it would be the direct reverse of this. (No. 2.) 4. What " Gladstonian " has explained away Home Rule or brought it below this meaning that there should be an Irish parliament for affairs properly and exclusively Irish ? Mr. Gladstone writes further : This letter is not suited for publication : but the whole statement of it may be used as from me. Mr. Reid further says that he is attempting, in the Westminster Review in February, " to clear some of the snow away," and admits that the Liberal road to Ireland through an Irish Parlia- ment and back again to the Union is not as clear as it should be. Two more letters pass between them, Mr. Reid sending to Sir John Mr. Gladstone's letter referred to, and expressing the hope that some basis of reconciliation between their views may still be found ; to which Sir John replies : High Elms, Farnborough, R.S.O., Kent, 17 January 1890. Dear Mr. Reid — Many thanks for your very kind letter. I had always hoped for, and do not yet despair of, XXIII CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 297 reunion in the Liberal party. Personally it has been to me a matter of deep regret not to be able to follow Mr. Gladstone in his Irish policy. I trust that further discussion may have a good result and have always avoided anything which could widen the breach. I have no objection to your publishing my letter, nor of course to Mr. Gladstone reading it ; but in that case I should like to see his reply. Mr. Gladstone then asks whether, seeing that Sir John so strongly objects to the " fixed sum," he would fall into line if it were not to be " fixed." Mr. Reid, while forwarding this question, says that he believes the leaders of the Liberal party to be all tending towards Federalism. Upon which Sir John writes : High Elms, Farnborough, R.S.O., Kent, 24 January 1890. Private. Dear Mr. Reid — Many thanks for your too flattering letter. If we are to keep our existing financial union, no doubt one great objection is removed, and as you will see by the enclosed I have always said that Federation does not appear to me open to the same fatal objections as Home Rule. I could not indeed advocate it because there are obviously great difficulties for which I do not yet see a solution. You speak of my recent "political fellowships," but in the City and in West Kent as well as in my own constituency, a large majority of those who led the Liberal party in the good old days are Unionists. You, yourself, say that the Liberals who have hitherto differed from us on this point are now abandon- ing Home Rule and tending to Federalism, an admission on their part that we have been right so far. If Mr. G. puts forward any new plan which I feel I should be justified in supporting I would most gladly do so, as my severance politically from him has been to me personally a matter of deep regret. 298 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. Two more letters, neither striking any very novel note in the well-worn controversy, passed, and that, as it seems, was the end of the corre- spondence. No more attempts appear to have been made to shake Sir John from his position. The Duke of Argyll, in March of this year, gave an address on Economic Science, in the course of which he enunciated a view which he believed to be Mr. Darwin's, on the origin of the human race. Sir John Lubbock took exception to it, as being an inexact interpretation of the great master's meaning, and the following friendly little war of words was waged between himself and the Duke : 39 Berkeley Square, W., 8th March 1890. My dear Duke of Argyll — I have read with much interest your address on Economic Science, but am greatly surprised at the statement that in Darwin's opinion, " Man originated with one parent." This is so much the reverse of what I understood from him to be his opinion that I should be greatly obliged if you would tell me his exact words and the date of his letter. The subject is one of so much interest, and Darwin's views carry so much just weight, that I hope you will forgive me for making the request. — I am, yours very sincerely, John Lubbock. His Grace the Duke of Argyll. March 10/90. My dear Sir John — You know that it is said of Scotchmen that they always answer a question by asking another ! Why does it surprise you that Darwin assumed the Human race to have begun at one spot, and with one pair ? Has he anywhere said the contrary ? I don't recollect any one passage in which either that, or the opposite theory is distinctly formulated. But I certainly always understood that he assumed with all species that each form had originated at a given place and spread from that. xxiii CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 299 It was on this understanding of his underlying assumption, that many years ago I wrote to him asking what was the ground on which he made it. His reply was — what I described — a reference to the Doctrine of Chances. I forget the year, but I am sure I have kept the letter — although I am not sure that I know where to find it. If similar forms, or rather identical varieties, have had separate origins, both as to time and place, a serious hole would be made in his theory : but he may have changed his view in later years. You do not imply that he has distinctly voted in favour of Black, Yellow and White Adams — originating at different places. On the contrary you speak of what " you understood from him to be his opinion " — which seems to refer to con- versation. But I should like much to know whether you have any written evidence that he believed in more " Adams " than one. — Yours very truly, Argyll. 39 Berkeley Square, W., 13 March 1890. My dear Duke of Argyll — I quite concur with you that in Darwin's opinion each species originated in one centre, but not I think from one pair. As I understood him external circumstances led to changes eventually resulting in a new species, but these circumstances in most cases affected a large number of individuals. I have not his books or letters with me here, but when I go home I will look up his letters. I saw him, however, so frequently that we generally talked on such questions ; this being much easier than writing. — Believe me, yours very truly, John Lubbock. His Grace the Duke of Argyll. The diary for April of this year is rather painful reading, by reason of its frequent reference to his sufferings from gout and struggles against it. Nevertheless he managed to be in London fre- quently, and to be active in scientific lecturing and in business. On April 26 he is better but 300 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. " still lame." He goes on : " An American named Hittel has been making a book on morality. He dwells principally on seven moralists, whom for short he indicates by initials thus — A, Marcus Aurelius ; B, Bentham ; C, Cicero ; E, Emerson ; F, Franklin ; L, Lubbock ; S, Seneca." Sir John, in making this entry, puts a very large note of admiration after " Lubbock," at finding himself in this company. On the 29th he records : " Got a boot on for the first time. London County Council meeting. Then to House, both Half-Holidays being down, but Tanner talked them out." Nevertheless, in spite of his personal pain and Dr. Tanner's loquacity, he is able to note on the following day, being his birthday, that " I have great causes for thankfulness." On July 15 Lord Rosebery resigned the Chairmanship of the London County Council, and the Committee of the Progressives proposed to put forward Lord Ripon. It was found, however, that some of the Progressives were determined to support Sir John Lubbock, and as it was known that he would have the unanimous vote of the Moderates, it was clear that Lord Ripon must be defeated. Naturally, therefore, he declined to allow himself to be nominated. The extreme Radicals, though they put forward no candidate of their own, saw fit to vote against Sir John. He was elected on July 22 by 63 votes to 30. The organs of the extreme Left, however, protested that he was only a locum tenens and that they would turn him out at the annual election in November. All this was not very CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 301 encouraging ; it would have been difficult in any case to follow Lord Rosebery ; the Chairmanship of the London County Council was no easy post ; the action taken by his opponents rendered it even more difficult, and gloomy prophecies were not wanting. But when November came it was found that all opposition had melted away and his re-election was unanimous. As he himself remarked, "It is sometimes more gratifying to be re-elected than to be elected." The speech in which he returned thanks for his election in July throws a clear light on the difficulties of his position : Gentlemen — I have summoned this meeting in response to a requisition signed in accordance with our fifth rule, in order to clear off our Agenda paper before we adjourn for the holidays. Under the circumstances, and as we have so much work before us, I will not detain you more than one or two minutes, but before com- mencing the business of the day, I am sure you will allow me in a few words to assure you how profoundly I feel the honour you have conferred on me, and the high post to which you have elected me. It has been said, I know, that I am not sufficiently progressive, and that I shall not be able to maintain order. As regards the first point, I might under other circumstances have said something, but I believe that to maintain the harmony and efficiency of our proceedings it is a primary duty of the Chairman to forget party, though I know that on the point we are not at all agreed. As regards the second point, I will only say that the Council has maintained, and I believe will maintain, its own order. Doubts, indeed many doubts, as to my fitness and qualifications I have myself felt, and, having regard also to my Parliamentary and other duties, I should have hesitated still more, but that the election only lasts until November. In Lord Rosebery I have an admirable example, but one difficult indeed to follow. To follow Lord Rosebery is in some respects a great advantage ; but not in all. No advantage in this world 302 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OH. — and I suppose it would be so in any other, — is without some drawback. In this case I know well that com- parisons will inevitably be made between the present and the past. You will, I cannot but feel, often look back with regret upon the past. Still, I am sure that I may ask for indulgence — that I may rely on your gener- ous support, because I know that it is the aim and object of us all, not merely to maintain the dignity of the Council, but to fulfil to the best of our abilities the duties we have undertaken, and the important trust which our fellow-citizens have confided to us. Lord Farrer was elected Vice- Chairman, and as subsequent letters will show gave most loyal and valuable support. When Sir John followed Lord Rosebery as Chairman of the County Council of London it was, as he himself said, inevitable that comparison between their respective leaderships should be instituted. Sir John did not fulfil, so well as Lord Rosebery, the popular ideal of a captain of men. He had wonderful gifts as a persuader of men, a capacity to win them round, by patient re- assuring, to his own view, but I do not know that he had that indescribable, sometimes called magnetic power which would lead them to follow him even on courses in opposition to their own view. This, as I imagine, is of the essence of the power of what is meant by a leader and a captain. It is not to be inferred from this that Lord Rose- bery ever thus led his County Council colleagues in opposition to their better reason. The differ- ence between Lord Rosebery and Sir John in the chair of this important body was, as a member of the council expressed it to me, that Lord Rosebery was more prompt in his rulings, but Sir John was the more safe. Others, however, have XXIII CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 303 spoken to me of Sir John's quick dexterity as a chairman. We may at least be sure that he acted as an exceedingly efficient president of this newly-formed body. It was at this time that the following notice was circulated among the members of the Linnean Society : Linnean Society, Burlington House, London, W., 25 July 1890. A Meeting of Fellows of this Society has been held with a view of securing a Portrait of the Right Hon. Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P., P.C., late a President of the Society. It was proposed by Sir Joseph Hooker, seconded by Mr. A. W. Bennett, and unanimously agreed that a Committee be appointed to take steps for carrying out this object. In August he and Lady Lubbock went for a tour in Switzerland, going first to Mauvoisin in the V. de Begn. On the 15th he notes that he found Aquilegia Alpina. Thence they went to the Bel Alp to be near the Tyndalls. During their absence some structural altera- tions were made at High Elms, the large hall being formed by throwing together a passage and a smaller room. Lady Lubbock, for it was to her initiative that these alterations were due, always showed extraordinary talent in the decoration of the rooms and in their furniture, both at High Elms and in their other houses. It was a department which Sir John, very wisely, left solely to her. He had been interested in the idea that the date of the Ice Age might be inferred approxi- mately from data given by astronomy and had consulted Sir Robert Ball, later the Astronomer 304 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. Royal, on the subject. Sir Robert, however, replies negatively, in an interesting letter : Observatory, Co. Dublin, 24 Sept. 1890. Dear Sir — I am much obliged for your kind letter. As to the date of the Ice Age I do not think the astronomical data can help us much. The formula that Croll used does not admit of such an extreme application or " extrapolation." But I have lately been studying with the greatest profit and delight Wright's Ice Age in North America, a book which Cronkey recommended to me. He points out that the Niagara Gorge has been cut since the ice, and that Lake Erie was formed by the ice. The time required to cut seven miles from Lake Ontario to Niagara seems to be the most reliable method of measur- ing the date of the Ice Age. At a foot a year (Ly ell's estimate, I believe) this means 35,000 years, but Wright gives good grounds for his opinion that it may not be more than 7000 ! As the facts which my little book is intended to set forth are (in the main) beyond a question, I thought it wiser to avoid matters about which there could be much uncertainty. I am half inclined, however, to attempt a summary of Wright's views, and if I do so I will trespass on your kindness to look over what I say. A few years ago I spent a week at Niagara, and the novelty of Wright's views makes me long to go there again. This year I was in Norway and the contrast between the Fiords before the Ice and Niagara Gorge since is very striking. Wright's book has interested me quite as much as Geikie's Great Ice Age, and that is saying a great deal. The arrangement of my pages will show you that when I began I did not intend to trouble you with so long a letter. Pray excuse it — and believe me, yours truly, Robert S. Ball. Sir John Lubbock. The following is worthy of quotation for the interest of its subject-matter, though the " map " which it is its principal purpose to suggest is not shown. CHAIRMANSHIP OF L.C.C. 305 High Elms, Farnborough, R.S.O., Kent, 31 Oct. 1890. My dear Bates — I have, as you know, long had an idea that the preponderance of peninsulas pointing southwards, for which no explanation has yet I think been offered, may perhaps be due to the preponderance of water on the Southern Hemisphere. If we suppose, for instance, a tract of land running north and south with a central mountain chain sloping off on both sides, we might have an oblong tract of land N as above. Now suppose the S end sunk, or the water raised, it would assume a pear shape with the point towards the S. N This seems to me to be the present state of our globe. If the water had accumulated to the N end, the point would have been to the N. I write therefore to ask whether you could get for me a map constructed (of the Northern Hemisphere first) very roughly, assuming say an additional depth of water of— At the equator . . . 500 20c 40c 60c 70c N. 1800 2500 3500 4000 VOL.1 306 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh.xx... Another reason for doing this very roughly at first is that I am not sure what depths of water should be taken. This would test my idea. It might show the Rocky Mountains corresponding to the S. Andes ; Scandinavia to S. Africa ; the Ourals to India, while the mountains of N. China and Kamchatka seem roughly to reproduce the features of the Malay Archipelago. I hope I have made my idea clear, if not please let me know. — Yours very sincerely, John Lubbock. The evidences of the various activities and speculations of his mind continue to mount up and seem inexhaustible. He notes, in the little summary in which, as usual, he jots down the main occupations of his year, that the County Council had made heavy calls on his time. Nevertheless, although he was Chairman instead of " Vice," I do not think that he found it quite so exacting as in its first year. CHAPTER XXIV VARIOUS ACTIVITIES (1891) (Age 57) The diary for 1891 opens on rather a delightful note. " January 1. Baby has not been very well. He said to Alice, ' If father knew his 'ittle boy was ill, he would come to him.' When I came home I asked him how he was. He said, 6 Better. Not quite better. Not dead yet.' I asked him if he had any pain. He said, ' Little headache — in my head — that's a funny place.' " Perhaps the inference is that a more familiar place for an ache was a little lower. Early in the year Sir John had some corre- spondence with Mr. E. T. (now Sir Edward) Cook, at that time editing the Pall Mall Gazette, on the subject of the list of the best hundred books which that paper had published as a pamphlet. Sir John was invited at the same time to give a list of those which he considered to be the best ten modern books. His reply shows that he did not feel himself quite able to comply with the sugges- tion, but the alterations that he made in his own list of the " best hundred " are not without interest : 307 308 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. High Elms, January V7th, 1891. Dear Mr. Cook — I have been so much occupied with administration work for the last two years that I have not been able to keep pace with contemporary literature, and I do not feel that I could draw up such a list as you suggest. I shall, however, read with much interest the opinions of others. When you reprint I really think you should give my real first list. The one you inserted as mine was compiled from the Morning Advertiser, and though the Report given there was admirable, it was not complete. In justice, I may surely ask that my own list should be given. The omissions have caused me some vexation, for instance, I have been blamed for omitting the Bible. I feel strongly on the point, and hope you will see the reasonableness of it. The only changes I have since made are the insertion of Schiller's W. Tell and Kalidases Sakuntala, and the omission of Lucretius and Miss Austen. — I am, yours very truly, John Lubbock. Throughout his life Sir John took a great pleasure in trying to direct the minds of people who had not enjoyed his advantages to an intel- ligent interest in the scientific pursuits which had such a strong attraction for him, and I think it was as much with this end in view as any other that he and Lady Lubbock in the early part of 1891 gave the first of a series of what they called " Parish Parties." They let it be known in the schools and by means of the Parish Magazine that invitations to an evening party at High Elms would be sent to any of the Down or Farnborough people who cared to give in their names. About 150 came. The host and hostess put out specimens, photographs, microscopes, books, etc., and gave tea and coffee from 8 to 10. The party was very much appreciated. VARIOUS ACTIVITIES 309 In February of this year the Bank published its accounts for the first time. It was the first London private bank to do so, and they received many congratulatory letters, including one from the Governor of the Bank of England. Shortly afterwards the Government asked Sir John to be Chairman of a Committee to settle the designs of the coins, those issued at the time of the Jubilee not being popular. The other members were Sir C. Fremantle, Sir John Evans, Sir F. Leighton, and Mr. R. B. Wede, Chair- man of the National Provincial Bank. They invited several distinguished artists to send in designs. Eventually designs by Poynter and Brock were accepted and gave general satisfaction. Sir John was very strongly in favour of retaining the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle. The Queen assented rather reluctantly, saying humorously that she thought there were " rather too many vegetables." Later in the following year, Her Majesty again asked : " Is it likely that the coat - of - arms smothered in vegetables on the half-crown will be preferred to the very pretty coat-of-arms on the half-crown last adopted ? " This spring the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Goschen, put forward some tentative proposals for an issue of £1 notes. Sir John opposed the suggestion in a speech to the London Chamber of Commerce, and again on March 16 at the Political Economy Club. It was not pressed further. The project for the issue of the notes had a certain support from Mr. Gladstone. On April 11 of this year Sir John notes that he " dined at 310 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OT. Playfair's — sate between Lady Cook and Lady Winifred Gardner. After the ladies left I was next Mr. Gladstone and had some talk about £1 notes. He is rather in favour of them, but thinks there ought to be an enquiry." Visits to the British Museum are of frequent notice in the diaries, and he had constant delight in taking his children to the Natural History Museum, the Zoo, and so on. After one of his British Museum visits he notes : " Lunched with Conny (Mrs. Buxton). She was telling Phyllis about the creation and Phyllis asked, ' Was I there ? ' ' Oh no,' said Kenneth solemnly, ' only grandpapa.' " Grandpapa, of course, was Sir John. If it were possible, which I cannot imagine, to suppose Sir John in any circumstances in which he would not have worn all the aspect of being serenely at home, we might think that we should have so found him on March 9 when, as he records, he " lunched at the Garrick with Irving, Beerbohm Tree, Hare, Bancroft, and some other actors to discuss the Theatres Bill. It was interesting to meet them, but the conversation was mainly on the Bill." A few days later there is a note which bears witness to the interest which King Edward VII. always took in theatrical matters. " Sat. 14th, British Museum meeting. The Prince of Wales was very gracious, but attacked me about the Theatres Bill. I told him that the theatre people ought not to complain, as we were doing everything we could to meet their views." In course of the same month, he concluded his sittings to Mr. Ward for the portrait which that VARIOUS ACTIVITIES 311 painter was making for the Linnean Society. Sir John records his impression of it as being " very like, but, I think, too red." I do not know the occasion of the following remonstrance, but presumably it was due to Sir John having done Lord Palmerston the injustice of denying him a jeu de mot which was rightly his : Bank of England, 3rd June 1891. My dear Lubbock — On what grounds is the best joke I have ever heard made attributed to " a witty Manchester man " ? The man who made it was Lord Palmerston, and to myself. He had returned from a tour to Lancashire where he had been well received, and I, on meeting him, by way of something to say, called his attention to the distinction between the revenues and expenditure of Liverpool and Manchester, the latter spending much less on showy buildings, but on useful things quite as much. To which he answered, " Oh yes, it is the old story, ' light come, light go ' with Liverpool. They have the local dues, and if you change a letter it is explained in Deus nobis haec otia fecit, — Dues, etc." I have often told the story, and I think at Manchester. — Yours, H. R. Grenfell. By virtue of Sir John's efforts in composing the Dock Strike, the Coal and Gas Companies' difficulties, and other troubles between Labour and Capital, his good influences as a pacificator, in these conditions, became widely recognised and were much sought. Of this recognition the following appeal may be taken as good evidence. House of Commons, June 11th, 1891. Dear Sir John Lubbock — In common with many other of our fellow-citizens, we have noted the serious differences which have arisen between the omnibus 312 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OT. proprietors and their employes, differences which if continued will be almost certain not merely to incon- venience the public, but to produce disastrous results to employers and employed. In the belief that the differences are such as might be adjusted by friendly mediation, we as M.P.'s representing London respect- fully suggest to you, as president of the London Chamber of Commerce, and as a prominent citizen possessing the confidence of the community, the advisability of your offering to undertake to act in the capacity of a mediator. — We are, yours faithfully, W. Randal Cremer. Sydney Buxton. James Rowlands. Richard K. Causton. George Howell. E. H. PlCKERSGILL. " Possessing the confidence of the community " is a phrase admirably descriptive of the popular appreciation. It is possible — I do not presume to know — that the Reform Club, as a Liberal institution, was at this time somewhat troubled between its Home Rulers and its Unionists. In this year Sir John was invited to become a special member of the Club under the rule which permits such invitation to be extended to any two members annually " for marked and obvious services to the Liberal Party." No election, under the rule, had been held since 1886, when the division occurred in the Liberal ranks, and for the sufficient reason that for the election of a candidate thus specially invited the vote had to be unanimous. A modus vivendi, however, had by this time been discovered, by the election to the Club of one Unionist and one Gladstonian annually. On this, the first VARIOUS ACTIVITIES 313 occasion of such election under the new rule, Sir John Lubbock and Mr. James (now Lord) Bryce were selected for the distinction. At midsummer of this year Sir John gave up the secretaryship of the London Bankers, which he had held for over a quarter of a century. Lord Hillingdon conveyed to him the regret of the bankers and their thanks for his past services in a highly complimentary letter, and a little later Lord Hillingdon was himself elected as their chairman with Sir John as Deputy. On August 5 he started for a little tour in Switzerland. At Geneva M. Correon joined him and they went together to Saas Fee. They found the glacier advancing and pushing up the turf, etc. Then over the Monte Moro to see the great moraine at Ivrea : then by the St. Bernard to Vevey and on to Homburg, where he met Lady Lubbock and the children. They went to see the Roman lamp at Saalberg and the Alt Konig where Brunhild slept in the ring of fire. " There are two great rings of stones," he writes, " but I saw no evidence of fire." It has been noticed that in his diary the entries recording games of fives have quite ceased and are generally replaced by brief accounts of golf, but on September 14, at Homburg, he was playing lawn-tennis. A few days later the Empress Friedrich drove him out to see her new Schloss. " When we were alone," he says, " she spoke of her great sorrow and loneliness, poor thing ! We looked all over the Schloss and grounds, had tea and drove back. She talked very freely of European politics, and spoke with great affection 314 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. of England. She seems to have a very fair know- ledge of wild flowers, and I tested her with some of the less conspicuous species. She seems to delight in flowers." On the 22nd he notes : " Home by Bonn and Brussels. It was a beautiful sunset. Harold noticed it of himself and said, ' How pretty ! Is it ours ? ' " Almost his first act of any public importance after his return was his resignation of the Chair- manship of the London County Council, and nearly all the papers had highly eulogistic references to his conduct in the Chair of the Council's business. The diary is a most curious medley of entries which have a large public in- terest and value, together with such details as " golf — 69 and 71 " (this was at Cromer, where he was staying at the beginning of October with Mr. and Mrs. Sydney Buxton). It continues : " Ursula caught a fine codling, which the children had for breakfast." There is an entry of some little interest, in the conversation about the Pope which it records, on the following Sunday : " Tricoupi, Sir J. Fergusson, Sir T. Sanderson, Mundella, and Mrs. Stanley came for Sunday. Sanderson said the Pope had personally a regard for Victor Emmanuel. When he died they brought the Pope the design for his tomb, which the Pope approved, but said he could not sanction it because the allegorical statues were all of Pagan deities. There was nothing Christian about it. So they took it away, altered Jupiter, Apollo, etc., into Fortitude, Truth, etc., and brought it back. The Pope was then satisfied." VARIOUS ACTIVITIES 315 When his resignation of the Chairmanship of the London County Council was brought before its members the regret expressed was universal, so much so that his diary of October 20 has the entry : " My colleagues on the London County Council presented me a memorial signed by every single one of them now in England, asking me to continue in the Chair until the end of our term of office. Under these circumstances I felt that I could not but consent." Whether these feelings underwent any modi- fication three days later, when, as he further notes, he " was in the Chair at the Licensing Meeting of the L.C.C. from 10 to 6.30, except half an hour for luncheon," we are not informed. It would not be much like Sir John to complain of hard work, but still such a tax as this on a man of his immense and immensely varied energies must have been felt heavily. It is really quite impossible, within the limits of tolerable space, even to notice more than a small fraction of the public work to which he gave himself so generously. Sir John has stated that one of his greatest difficulties, in the whole course of his office as Chairman, arose in December 1891 when it was proposed by the General Purposes Committee to present an Address to the Prince and Princess of Wales on the approaching marriage of the Duke of Clarence. It appeared that some of the more extreme members intended to seize the occasion to make a personal criticism on the Prince, and it was felt that this would be a grave scandal. On the other hand, the notice had been 316 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch.xxiv printed on the Agenda paper, and to withdraw it would have been almost equally undesirable. After conferring therefore with a few of the Chairmen of Committees, he determined to avail himself of the rule allowing the Chairman, if he thinks fit, to accept a motion " that the question be now put." It was arranged that as soon as the seconder sat down several members should jump up and move that the question be now put. This was done. The motion was put and carried, and the Address itself was then put and carried before the opponents had recovered their surprise. They were excessively angry and threatened to move the adjournment. He said, " Certainly, but that on the motion for adjournment he would not permit any discussion on the Prince." Then Mr. Burns threatened a vote of censure. He said he " would give it precedence at the next meeting, that he knew he had done a strong thing, and could not complain if they abused him, but that on such a motion they could not attack the Prince " ; on which Mr. Burns laughed good- humouredly and said he had the best of them all round. He heard no more of the threatened censure, and had reason to believe that after a few days' reflection even his opponents quite approved what he had done. The above is but one of several instances which might be cited of an extreme dexterity in the management of meetings, which his frequent experience gave him, and of an audacity, concealed under a very gentle courtesy of manner, which often took the enemy off his guard. CHAPTER XXV RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP OF LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (1892) (Age 58) 1892 opened sadly for the nation. Influenza was very rife, and one of its victims in the first month of the year was the young Duke of Clarence, the heir, after his father, to the throne. Sir John writes that at the first meeting of the London County Council they took only the unopposed business, as a sign of respect for the mourning of the Royal Family. It does not appear that unopposed measures were at all normal in the County Council just at that moment. Parties were divided with some evenness in their views on several vital points, such, for instance, as the mode in which loans for public works should be made to the vestries. Sir John was firmly in favour of advancing the loans in instal- ments, as had been done hitherto. His chief opponent was Mr. C. Harrison. On January 20 he notes that, " After a long discussion I carried in the Finance Committee a resolution against C. Harrison, recommending the Council to adhere to our instalment system as regards our loans. 317 318 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. We shall, I suppose, have a battle royal over it in Council next Tuesday." They did. Under that date he writes : " We have had a great struggle over our loans in the L.C.C. I moved a resolution in the Finance Committee that we should continue the policy pursued till now. This came up for confirmation. Campbell moved an amendment to leave everything open, but was beaten by four. Benn then moved an amendment to postpone the further consideration till March. This was carried by one vote, on which Farquhar, Antrobus, and Harben resigned their seats on the Finance Com- mittee as a protest, and I believe one or two others will follow." On February 2 we seem to pass into a more peaceful atmosphere, for he is able to note, " A quiet Council. We had several loans, but so far the Vestries have all preferred the old system." During this time of stress he had the direction of the affairs as Chairman without the support of his deputy, Lord Farrer, who saw eye to eye with him on all these points, but was, unfortunately, abroad. There are one or two of Lord Farrer 's letters of the time which show how cordially he was with Sir John in spirit as a Moderate and opposed to the Progressives. Lord Farrer was laid up at Naples as the result of an accident on shipboard. West End Hotel, Naples, 11 January 1892. My dear Lubbock — Thanks for your note. I am getting on, but muscles and sinews are slow in resuming their functions, and I do not know when we shall be able to move, much less when we shall get back home — probably not before the Election. I wish I were with you to fight Charles Harrison, but it is out of the ques- XXV RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 319 tion. It is to my mind a vital point. To lead the ratepayers of London to believe that they can perman- ently shift the burden of taxation by postponing debt is fatal to all sound Finance. It will veneer the mere selfishness of casting burdens off ourselves on to posterity with the false pretence that we are taxing Owners. When the debt is postponed, it will be found that the burden ultimately falls on the same class of persons as at present, and that we have simply relieved present ratepayers (occupiers or owners) at the cost of future ratepayers (occupiers or owners). I feel so strongly about this that I have written to Benn to say that I shall probably resign my Vice-Chair- manship by way of protest, if C. Harrison's proposal is carried. Of course, I will not do this without hearing from you. — Sincerely yours, T. H. Farrer. Mr. Harrison's progressive policy did, however, for the time being, prevail after a keen conflict. Sir John, writing to Lord Farrer says, " I am sadly vexed at the result." Lord Farrer's follow- ing letter must have given him some comfort : West End Hotel, Naples, 2nd February /92. My dear Lubbock — Your note of the 30th — just a word. It is indeed an undignified and inglorious position for the majority who have followed C. Harrison, but not for you. Great as have been your services to the Council throughout I don't think they have ever been so great as on this occasion. Did I tell you how much Lord Rosebery was pleased with your letter, and your action generally. He says the whole business will in the end weaken C. Harrison's influence. I am not sure of this. But I think it may lead a new Council to see, that if they choose leaders, they must find some way either of letting the leaders lead, or of letting them depart, and choosing others. It is idle to ask Chairmen to carry out a policy of which they do not approve. I want to see your article on the Government of London. I am mending, and was able to hobble into the Museum 320 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. yesterday on the level, but am still very far from having the use of my leg. The Government Commission on Water seems to me to be right in its terms, if it gets the right men. There is nothing in it to prevent our Bill going on, I think. — Sincerely yours, T. H. Farrer. Under all the circumstances it is perhaps little wonder that Sir John definitely decided that at the end of his term of office as Chairman he would not stand again for the County Council. Pressure to reconsider this decision was put upon him from various quarters. The City of London Liberal Association wrote : "At our Executive Committee to-day the most urgent wishes were expressed that you should stand again, and a resolution was passed and a deputation appointed to wait on you. . . . Great stress was laid on the advantage of your being spokesman of the Council in the House of Commons." Nevertheless Sir John felt, I think, that he had done his full meed of public work in this particular direction, and was firm in his resolve not to stand again for the Council, though he did later consent to nomination as an alder- man. On retiring from the Chairmanship he invited his colleagues to a dinner. The following response to that invitation from Lord Rosebery, his pre- decessor in the chair, shows a full appreciation of the peculiar difficulties which the office had entailed on Sir John, as well as the writer's ap- preciation of the gallant way in which he had " crested the wave." RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 321 Mentmore, Leighton Buzzard, Feb. 6, 1892. My dear Lubbock — Your kind note greeted me on my return here from Italy yesterday. I should greatly like to assist at your dinner, as I also wish to assist at that to be given to you by the City Liberal Club. But, frankly, all depends on sleep with me just now. If I get two consecutive nights of fair sleep, I am all right ; if, as too often happens, I have bad nights, I am all wrong. And it is so long since I have dined out, that I would ask you to let me leave it open till close upon the day. You do not need the assurance that I will if I can. I have seen much of Farrer. He is wonderfully well and vigorous ; sitting in the sunshine in a noble view ; and pretty good on his crutches. ... I am afraid you have had great trouble of late — alone in your chair without Deputy, or Vice in any form ; and with Chair- men crumbling around you. But you have fairly crested the wave ; and, not content with presiding over all London wholesale, and half London in detail, you have written (I suppose with your unoccupied toes) two articles on London subjects this month ! You are a marvel. — Yours sincerely, Rosebery. Lord Farrer himself wrote his congratulations and regrets, to which Sir John replies : " Many thanks for your very kind letter. It has been a great pleasure to me working with you, and your advice and help have been invaluable." The articles referred to by Lord Rosebery are the one on the " Government of London " in the Fortnightly, and the other on the " London Water Supply " in the Nineteenth Century. I think that Lord Farrer had assisted him with a few notes on the latter subject, for they are the subject of the reference in the first sentence or two of the following letter, of which the latter part refers to the Senses of Animals. VOL. I Y 322 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. West End Hotel, Naples, January 3rd, 1892. My dear Lubbock — You will get in a day or two a few hasty notes which I had intended to be subjects of an article. I shall not, however, be able to do anything with it in the absence of materials, and I therefore send them to you, in case you should be able to make any use of them. Use them freely and destroy them ; I have another copy. I have just finished your book, and feel what a vista it opens for future observation ; it is clear that the thing now to do is to try to find out, as you have done, what animals really do see, hear and feel, rather than what their organs ought to enable them to do. What a world of possibilities the subject opens to us. Another thing which strikes me much is that those very elaborate organisations, such as the eye, which seemed at first inconsistent with evolution, become, — with further knowledge and observation, — the strongest confirmations of it. Do you know Goethe's little poem beginning, — Immer so vor vielen Jahren. I always wanted Darwin to make it a motto for one of his books. — Sincerely yours, T. H. Farrer. It has been sometimes stated that the astro- nomical explanation of the cold of the Glacial period, which he adopted in Prehistoric Times, has since been disproved. The following letter from Professor Bonney shows that one high authority at any rate shared his views. The Duke of Argyll's letter of a year later, acknowledging a copy of Sir John's Beauties of Nature, gives an indication of the Duke's views on one aspect of the question. 23 Denning Road, Hampstead, N.W., Jan. 9, 1892. Dear Sir John Lubbock — I do not remember to have seen — perhaps owing to my absence from London and general occupation with pressing matters for some time past — Bodmer's paper on River Terraces. RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 323 Please tell me where it appeared, and I will look it up. Will you at the same time kindly inform me whether Sir R. Ball's Cause of the Ice Age is the first volume which has been published of the Modern Science series. I have always been convinced that Croll was in the main right, though I felt the great difficulty which Ball has now proved to be a " Bogie." Still I am not satisfied that the mystery of Geological Climate is wholly solved — though we are now freed from our main difficulty. But we have to explain the eocene climate as well as that of the glacial epoch, and I am not sure whether his " geniality " is equal to that. — Very truly yours, T. G. BONNEY. Inveraray, Jan. 29/93. My dear Sir John — Many thanks for kindly sending to me a copy of your book on The Beauties of Nature — just the sort of book I like best. In cutting it just now I noticed that you accept the theory of the " Ice Sheet " covering up the whole of our Scotch Hills — as completely as the slopes of Greenland are now covered. I am myself persuaded that this Ice Sheet is as pure a myth as ever arose out of Scientific theories. But this is a long story, there were glaciers — at all events coming down all the glens — no evidence that I can see of anything more. — Yours very truly, Argyll. The following note from the spokesman of the " staff " of the County Council bears witness to Sir John's thoughtful kindness for all associated with him. I have had the pleasure of communicating to the members of the staff in all the departments your kind letter of farewell. They are much gratified at the appreciative terms in which you speak of them and their work, and are very sorry that the expiration of your term of office has deprived them of a head, who in dealing with them always displayed unfailing kindness and courtesy. " And this is the verdict of us all." On February 27 he gave the dinner, of which vol. I y 2 324 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK OT. previous mention has been made, to his colleagues on the London County Council. They buried all their controversies, the speeches were excellent and very cordial. Lord Rosebery was able to be present, and after the dinner wrote him a pleasant little note of appreciation. Durdans, Feb. 28, 1892. My dear Lubbock — I must write you a line of congratulation on your entertainment of last night. It was both genial and splendid — a rare combination ; all enjoyed themselves ; and there was not a jarring note. No public body has ever had a pleasanter Nunc dimittis. — Yours sincerely, Rosebery. Though he declined to stand again for the City, still, being urged on all sides to accept a seat as Alderman, he felt he could not refuse, and on March 15 he was elected at the head of the list — indeed, it was believed, unanimously. He made his acceptance conditional, however, on the understanding that he should not be expected to work on Committees. In February we find the Secretary of the London Chamber of Commerce writing to him. It was the unanimous desire of the Council, at their meeting on Thursday last, that you should be requested to be good enough to allow your name to be once more submitted for re-election as President, at the forth- coming Annual Meeting. I believe that, in this con- nection, Mr. Tritton has already informed you that the period of office of President usually extends over two years ; and that, as you have served only one year of the second period perhaps it may be possible for you, in view of the possible relaxation of your duties else- where, to complete the second period of your term of office as President. Some importance will, I believe you are aware, attach to the Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire which will be held in June next, XXV RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 325 and it is specially in connection with this that the Council desire, if possible, to secure your services. The Council will, I am sure, be extremely grateful if you are able to entertain this request favourably ; and personally, I need hardly assure you that I will do my best to take up as little of your time as possible. ..." This request he complied with. He was much gratified by the following invita- tion to join " The Club," but feeling that it would not be possible for him to attend often, asked that his election might be postponed. A year or two later he did join " The Club." The Camp, Sunningdale, Feb. 17. My dear Lubbock — You have doubtless heard of Hirst's death — a grievous loss to our little Club. Bates, too, on the same day. I have been commissioned to ask whether it would be agreeable to you to be proposed for membership of " The Club," of which I enclose a card. It is the Blue ribbon of such -like Clubs (always excepting the X !) and holds the shades of Johnson, Goldsmith, Reynolds, Banks and a host of the like. Of course, punctual attendance is not expected, but a reasonable amount is. I need not say that your company would be much prized, and I am always anxious that The Club should contain a strong contingent of the best scientific men. — Ever affectionately yours, J. D. Hooker. This year he was living at 117 Piccadilly for the Parliamentary season. The session was a heavy one, and he writes that on February 23 he was called out of his bed to go down to the House and vote. On March 2 his son-in-law, Mr. Van Zandt, died with a wholly unexpected suddenness, leaving Sir John's eldest daughter for the second time a widow. He felt this tragedy very deeply, as is shown by the entries referring to it in his 326 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK cm. diary. Towards the end of the month Mrs. Van Zandt came to stay with them. It was but the day before this tragic event that Sir John records in his diary, like a schoolboy just off for the holidays, " At last — my final Council over ! A great relief. Fardell proposed, Benn seconded, and Russell and Thornton supported, a vote of thanks to me in very kind and complimentary speeches. In some respects I am sorry, but it has been a great anxiety, and I am glad it is all well over." The Council by this time was beginning to get into its stride, and it had fallen to Sir John and to Lord Rosebery to do much of the hard work of the rough-rider in teaching it, at the same time as they themselves learned, its paces. During this month of March he was much interested in the commission to settle the new coins. On the 10th he says, " We settled our Foreign Bond- holders' report. Afterwards we had our final meeting of the Coinage Commission. We have agreed on designs, keeping Pistrucci's George and Dragon, but for the rest adopting designs by Brock, excepting the reverses of the Florin and Shilling, which will be by Poynter." Sir Charles Fremantle, at this time Master of the Mint, was his Vice-Chairman on the Council of Foreign Bondholders. Sir Charles informed me that he was most astonished to find how extensive was Sir John's knowledge of coins. I pointed out to him that Sir John's antiquarian studies had of necessity incited him to a study of many of the ancient coins, so that this was really not such a wonderful example of his versatility. Sir RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 327 Charles had a most profound respect for Sir John's business ability, saying that they never were in a difficulty in any concern of the bond- holders which Sir John's acumen did not at once solve if they could catch him for a consultation. He remarked what a wonderful combination Sir John was of " thinker, almost dreamer, with acute man of business, keen on the main chance." Thinker — yes ; but dreamer — surely no. On any subject that attracted his attention Sir John could concentrate most powerful thought, but the dreamer is rather one who allows his mind to wander, without special aim, as associated ideas suggest each other. This was not in the least Sir John's habit, and he would have regarded it as a sheer waste of time. He was the last man in the world to endorse either in precept or practice Balzac's dictum that " Le temps le mieux employe est celui qu'on perd." To be sure he was no judge, for he never did lose any. The following refers to the Annual Meeting of the subscribers to the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders, a small but noisy section being opposed to the policy which the Council, with one exception, advocated. York House, Twickenham, Middlesex, March 26th, 1892. My dear Lubbock — You really must allow me to congratulate you on the way you managed those beasts at Ephesus yesterday. It was a most finished piece of art — quite classical in its perfection, I would not have missed it for a great deal. . . . I am busy over my Geographical Address with which I am taking this year a great deal of pains. — Believe me, yours sincerely, M. E. Grant Duff. This is the meeting spoken of before, of which 328 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. his singularly successful and firm management evoked the astonished admiration and comment of his friend Mr. (now Sir Everard) Hambro. At the end of April he attended the dinner of the Royal Academy and, not for the first time, returned thanks for Science. His diary of May 4 records rather an amusing incident in the House. " I was sitting by Cun- ninghame Graham during the discussion of a Bill on the unearned increment, and Asquith was speaking, when I suggested that if this was just as regards land it applied equally to shares in companies. Cunninghame Graham said, ' Yes, you are right, the Bill is a swindle,' and jumped up saying something to the same effect very ex- citedly. The Speaker at once named him. I tried to pull him down but uselessly, and he was promptly suspended." Under date May 17, 1892, is a letter from Sir Charles Tupper to Sir John, enclosing a copy of the resolution in favour of preferential trade between Great Britain and her Colonies which was passed by the House of Commons of Canada on April 26 of that year, together with some memoranda of the differential tariffs given by France and Spain to their Colonies. The letter concludes by expressing a hope " for a favourable response to the unanimous wish of the United Empire Trade League that you should accept the Presidency of the League for the coming year." The Shop Hours Act Amendment Bill had passed through a Select Committee, but was in danger of perishing at the annual massacre of the innocents. The Government promised to help XXV RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 329 him through with it if the Opposition would agree, on which he wrote to Sir W. Harcourt who was then the Liberal Leader. 117 Piccadilly, W., June 18, '92. My dear Harcourt — I write to make an appeal to you about the Shop Hours Bill, the object of which in its present form is to enable local authorities to appoint Inspectors to carry out the provisions of the Shop Hours Act of 1886. The Bill has passed through a select Committee by whom it was unanimously approved, and who took the somewhat unusual course of passing a special resolution urging the House to pass the Bill. We had very strong, and I may say heartrending evidence as to the terribly long hours during which young people are being worked in shops, and the fatal effect on their health. Stuart Wortley has informed me that the Government are willing to pass the Bill, if you will consent. I write then urgently to beg you to allow me to say that this may be done. — Believe me, yours very sin- cerely, John Lubbock. The Rt. Hon. Sir W. Harcourt, M.P. To this Sir William Harcourt replied : 45 Brook Street, W., June 18th, 1892. My dear Lubbock — As long as I thought that the Government really meant to accelerate business with a view to an early dissolution, I did not feel myself justified in contributing to burden their list with additional measures, which might, or might not, give rise to dis- cussion and delay. Now, however, that it is made apparent that they only desire pretexts to stave off the dissolution to the period which suits their own book, I feel I have no further responsibility in the matter, and have no reason either to assent or dissent to any course which they may think fit to take. I consider that in the spirit, if not in the letter, they have violated the under- standing upon which I did all in my power to aid them in passing their bills. That being so, I consider I have no 330 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. longer any voice in the matter, and they are quite at liberty to take what course they please. I need not say that I have no disposition, except with a view to expediting the close of the Parliament, to offer any opposition to the shop-hours bill, but you must settle that with the Government, who alone have now any- thing to say to the arrangement of business. — Yours sincerely, W. V. Harcourt. On June 21 Sir John is able to note " Provand having left his Shop Hours Bill, I got it through Committee and Third Reading." On July 2 he writes : " This session I have passed Public Libraries Consolidation Bill, Ancient Monuments (Ireland) Amendments Bill, London Water Bill and the London General Powers and London Money Bills, besides doing something to help the Shop Hours Act Amend- ment Bill." At the General Election this year the Committee of the University of London Liberal Association did not oppose Sir John's re-election, but issued the following protest : " We, the undersigned members of the Convocation of the University of London, while recognising that the distin- guished public services and personal popularity of the Right Hon. Sir John Lubbock make it undesirable to contest his seat in Parliament at the forthcoming election, nevertheless feel it our duty to protest that on the question of the government of Ireland he does not represent our views, and to express with Mr. Gladstone a real anxiety that the University of London should do something ' to redeem the character of our Universities from the charge of political narrowness, which has unfortunately derived RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 331 colour from the uniformity of opposition offered by their representatives in Parliament to what we believe to be, in the great Irish question, the cause alike of humanity, of justice, of reason, and of union.' " The protest was signed by Sir H. Roscoe, M.P. (President of the Association), Mr. Picton, M.P. (Chairman of Committee), Dr. E. Woakes (Treasurer), Dr. W. J. Collins (Hon. Secretary), and thirteen others. On June 28 he took the chair at the meeting of the Chamber of Commerce of the Empire. The Canadians moved a " Fair Trade " resolution, which, however, was rejected. On July 13 his diary notes : " With Alice and the children and Daisy Norman to Switzerland." They went first to Zurich, " then Stachelberg, to the rockfall at Elm, up the Klonthal, then to Wartenstein. Made an expedition to Vattis and the head of the Kunchels Pass, the Gorge of the Tamina, to Tamins to have a look at the Kunchels from the other side." They returned home on August 6. All the while, as in former Swiss tours, he was collecting material for the book which he brought out later on the Scenery of Switzerland. " I have been working principally at geology," he says, " and reading especially Heim's excellent volume in the Swiss Geological Survey, which seems a real masterpiece." There had been some idea of their being with the Tyndalls in Switzerland — joining forces for a day or two, at least — but the Tyndalls do not appear to have left England till later. Professor Tyndall was much out of health at the time. In August we find him writing from Switzer- 332 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. land to Sir John, who by that time was at home again. The story of an amusing, though extremely natural, little mistake of Mrs. Gladstone's is noted in his diary on the 11th of this month. It was narrated of a dinner at the Sydney Buxtons' at which were Sir J. Grant, Mr. George Russell, and Sir Alfred Lyall : " Story of Mrs. Gladstone having sat next Lyall and saying afterwards she was so sorry she had not caught the name, she would so much have liked to ask him some questions about geology — taking him for Sir Charles Lyell." On the 18th the appointment was announced of Mr. Sydney Buxton as Under-Secretary of the Colonies, which pleased Sir John greatly. His comment in his diary is, "I am sure he will do it very well." Naturally he wrote to Mr. Buxton his con- gratulations, receiving the following from Mrs. Buxton in reply : 15 Eaton Place, S.W., 18 Aug. 1892. My dearest Father — Thank you so much for your kind letter of congratulation. We are delighted at Sydney's appointment. It is work he will like very much indeed, and he is particularly fond of Lord Ripon. Mr. Gladstone wrote a very nice letter (which came this morning) saying that he hoped Sydney would consider himself quite free to take part in Debate on the subjects he cared for outside his own Department. Sydney looks forward very much to the work, and is very happy. But poor Edward Grey is rather blue, having just been told that he will get no holiday for some time, and never have his Sundays ! Our little gang of 5 has done well, hasn't it ? With two cabinet ministers, two Under Secretaries, and only RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 333 one member (Mr. Haldane) out of office. . . . — Your loving daughter, Con. B. In October the Beauties of Nature came out. It had a large sale and was translated into many languages. In Germany a cheap English edition was printed, as an English reader for schools, with a little dictionary of its own. In this book he referred to the question whether there had been any change in the moon during historic times. Some authorities thought that there was in one case evidence of a slight alteration. He consulted Sir G. G. Stokes, who replied : Lensfield Cottage, Cambridge, 12th Dec. 1892. My dear Lubbock — When I wrote to you I had in my mind a vague recollection of a discussion a great many years ago in Section A of the British Association relative to, I think, the spot called Linus, and my recollection is that it was thought that there was no solid ground for thinking there had been a change. If I rightly recollect, it was a suspicion of volcanic action indicated by a slight red light when the spot was in shade, as regards the sun. On looking at the drawings of photographs to which you referred me, I noticed at once, what doubtless you too must have noticed, that the shadows lay opposite ways, which is shown also by the difference of the dates at which the photographs were taken — Aug. 15 and Aug. 27. Now imagine that you took two photographs of a terrestrial range of mountains from a fixed point a long way up, the photograph on one occasion being taken when the sun was low in the east, and on the other low in the west. There would be a general correspondence between the two of such a character that light in the one would answer to dark in the other, and such there is between the two drawings. But we should not expect all the details of light and shade to be just the reverse in the one of what they are in the other ; for some parts of the mountain would be in sun on both occasions, and 334 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. some in shade on both. Supposing therefore that there were no change in Archimedes itself in the 12 days' interval, I should not expect that the two photographs would correspond like the positive and negative photo- graphs of the same object taken on the same occasion. I see Miss Shinn does not say a word as to these two photographs affording any evidence of change. To afford such evidence, pairs of photographs would have to be compared which were taken as nearly as possible at the same age of the moon for each pair. — Yours sincerely, G. G. Stokes. Right Hon. Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M.P. He received, from all quarters, very many acknowledgments and reviews of the book, in- dicating how quickly all that he wrote found appreciation even in the farthest distant corners of the globe. On August 14 he was at Birmingham, for an Early Closing Meeting — " Stayed with J. Cham- berlain who made an excellent speech and went in for us thoroughly. It was a very large meet- ing." On the following day he was back in London again at a Bank of England Meeting, making what we may well suppose to be quite a popular motion — " proposed to raise the salaries of the Governor and Deputy Governor to £2000 and £1500." We may learn without surprise that " it was carried unanimously." So, all through October the diary shows its usual record of happy and unceasing activity both physical and mental. He was here, there, and everywhere, " to Bristol, to open the new Science Buildings at the Grammar School — the great hall in the school is a beautiful room," to Early Closing Meetings, and so on, and then, on November 3, this happy note is all changed by RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 335 the record of a tragic occurrence which affected Sir John very deeply — the sudden and wholly unexpected death of his daughter Constance, wife of Mr. Sydney Buxton. " All her life she was nothing but a comfort and a joy to me," he writes. " She was indeed full of sympathy and thought for every one." And again, five days later : " She was indeed a joy and blessing and comfort to me, and I ought to be thankful that she was spared so long to us. To talk to her was like sunshine and sea air, and she was so utterly unselfish. I can hardly realise that we have lost her." It is a charming and touching eulogy. Never- theless, deep as Sir John's grief was he did not allow it to suspend his activities. In response to a request from Dr. Welldon, the Headmaster of Harrow, he gave a lecture on Natural Science to the School on the Hill. At the opening of the Medical Session he distributed the prizes at St. Thomas', and gave an address of which the concluding portion is worthy of passing notice. He said that " In recent years Medical Science had made marvellous strides. Sir George Hum- phrey in his address last year had pointed out that when he began life anaesthetics and anti- septics had not been dreamt of, there were no excisions of joints, no abdominal operations. It was an antideluvian period without temperature thermometers, without stethoscopes, aspirators, iodide of potassium, salicylic acid, or even cod liver oil. The treatment of wounds was some- thing horrible. During that period the know- ledge of the localisation of brain function had 336 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK CH. become more extended, more precise, and had resulted, in the hands of Ferrier, Worsley, M'Ewan, and others, in those great achievements of brain surgery which had already proved so successful. He wished to impress upon them very strongly the importance of cultivating habits of business. Sir J. Paget had given some very interesting statistics which showed that out of 1000 medical students whose career he had followed, rather more than 200 left the profession or died early, more than 600 attained fair, some of them con- siderable success, but of the whole number only 56 entirely failed. Of these 56, 15 never passed the examination, 10 failed through ill-health or accident, and 10 through dissipation or intem- perance. They might rest assured that if they had done their best they would have the happiness of feeling when old age came that they had led useful lives, that they had brought comfort and consolation into many a home ; had not only relieved the ailments of the body, but the still keener sufferings of the mind, and had enabled many, if not to realise, at any rate somewhat more to appreciate the inestimable gift of life and the interest and beauty of the world in which they lived." In the autumn, shortly after Mrs. Buxton's death, he went to North Devon with Lady Lubbock and their daughter Ursula. Minehead was their headquarters. He writes that on Sunday they went for a " beautiful walk along the shore Westward, and back over the hill. In one place found well-marked ripple marks on the sandstones, which are highly inclined." On the XXV RESIGNS CHAIRMANSHIP 337 following day he says, " Dear little Ursula much interested in the shore." This note is worth attention, for it is the first hint of an interest which he was at much pains to develop to the mutual pleasure of father and daughter. Of all his children none was a more zealous assistant in his later scientific pursuits. Mr. Thomas Hughes (Tom Brown) was at him again this year to enlist his aid in the preservation of that equine specimen in chalk, which he loved so dearly, the old White Horse. Abington House, Abington, N.B., 1.9.92. Dear Lubbock — I get letters from the Vale of White Horse, Berks, bewailing the condition of that " ancient monument " and crying out for something to be done before it disappears. The last letter says, that an " Inspector " as they call him came down lately, and, after examining, went to Lord Craven at Ashdown Park (close by), the owner of the freehold, who forbade him from doing anything. This is only gossip so far as I know, but I really should be glad if something can be done. I can't get at the statutes here, but my impres- sion is that the White Horse and Wayland Smith's cave (a cromlech) were scheduled to the Ancient Monuments Act. If this is so, and you can do anything to put the Act in motion, you will much oblige me and all native West Berks men. Much as I distrust and dislike the Government, I am very glad of Acland's promotion, and hope it may augur some good for the W. M. College, which deserves to be put on a sound financial basis. We have been enjoying our holiday in Scotland whence I go back now to work at Chester. — Ever yours very truly, Thos. Hughes. This is the first year, as it is also nearly the last, in which we may find him who had so ardent a faith in the " Duty of Happiness " concluding his annual summary on a note other than that of joyful thanksgiving. 338 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. xxv " Another year gone : it has been a sad one. 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